[Rick Lee]

I saw a fascinating show on Nat. Geo. tonight about organ transplants, bone grafting and the black market that exists for such. I didn't know this before, but apparently, you're ineligible for the transplant list if you're not expected to live at least five years after the transplant. So, of course, they interviewed some folks who had gone abroad to get what they needed.

One guy had been diagnosed with a liver ailment and was given less than a year to live and also told he wasn't going on the transplant list. He found a connection in China and three weeks after he went there, he had come home with a "new liver". Of course, they mentioned all the organ harvesting that goes on there with executed prisoners. Maybe I'm just ammoral, but I have no problem with executed prisoners being used for this stuff. If there were some actual market forces at work in organ availability, seems to me a lot more folks would get transplants.

I dated a girl once who had donated a kidney to a friend. And she told me there was a rigorous investigation process to make sure she was receiving no payment for it and really just wanted to help her friend out. Why in the world shouldn't someone be allowed to sell a kidney?