In the article “Death’s Waiting List” Sally Satel argues that the sale of organs should be allowed in the U.S. She hopes to convince the reader that the only guarantee of getting a transplant is to skip the wait list and just buy one. Although Satel makes a good argument she seems very biased and provides biased evidence to support her claims. Satel claims that there is a problem with organ donations. In order to prove this she begins her argument by stating that the wait for a kidney in a big city, “is five to eight years and expected to double by 2010.”(2) Well, it is now 2012 and it still takes the same amount of time to get a kidney transplant. The time did not double like Satel claimed it would. As a matter a fact according to the …show more content…

First she provides a defenseless analogy to strengthen her argument. She says that, “We’ve accepted markets for human eggs, sperm, and surrogate mothers.” Well first off organs do not reproduce like sperm and human eggs. If they did then the demand for organ transplants really wouldn’t be an issue, and Satel’s purpose for writing this article would be pointless. Another problem with this analogy is that organs are not “rented” like a surrogate mother’s womb. Satel should have known better than to include a weak analogy, she is a psychiatrist for crying out loud!
Satel then goes on to say that, compensation for kidney donation by the living would benefit the poor and not exploit them. She then says that if this was government regulated, donors could, “receive education about their choices, undergo careful medical and psychological screening, and receive quality follow-up care.”(13) She does not mention who would be paying for these services. Will the government also be compensated? Will they be paid for with tax dollars? She does not give full details of how her solution would work. She does a poor job proving that compensation for organ transplants would actually work. “Quality of life” how does giving away an organ enhance your quality of life? Maybe financially. Not mentally or physically. It seems that finances are her only measure of quality when it comes to the poor.
A relevant piece of evidence that Satel misses or