ABSTRACT
In order to be more than an intellectual exercise, a proposed market must garner legislative approval and popular support, and to do that it must be ethically acceptable. The recently improved success rate of organ transplantation has exacerbated what was recognized as a serious problem twenty years ago: the shortage of available transplant organs. Because organ transplantation as a routinely successful medical procedure is a relatively recent phenomenon, no statutory provision for organ donation existed in this country prior to World War II. The human body is a peculiar thing. At the moment of death, it is transformed from the exalted state of the corporeal incarnation of the human spirit to the irreversible status of a cadaver. It is understandably difficult for people to immediately recognize and accept such an awesome transformation. The pure donation system focused on a presumed unwillingness of people to donate.
