1NC
T
Removing the federal ban doesn’t legalize---just a halfway step--legalization means a total removal of sanctions and institution of a
regulatory framework
Alexandra K. Glazier 11, Lecturer in Law at Boston University, JD from Boston University,
29 Jan 2011, “The principles of gift law and the regulation of organ donation,” Transplant
International Volume 24, Issue 4, pages 368–372, April 2011,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1432-2277.2011.01226.x/full
Gift law also provides a coherent legal principle to a system of transplantation that prohibits the purchase or sale of organs given that, by definition,
gifts involve an uncompensated transfer. A system that relies on gift law principles as the fundamental legal basis for consent to donation constructs a
significant principled legal barrier to creating an open or regulated organ market system. The
existing United States federal law
prohibiting purchase and sale of organs is buttressed by 50 state laws regulating consent to
donation through gift law principles [7].¶ Over-turning the federal ban would not
eliminate the legal requirement in the United States that consent for donation be
accomplished through the voluntary and uncompensated transfer of organs because donation is based on gift
law principles. Any regulation of consent to donation that is built on gift law principles precludes the possibility of exchanging organs for money as this
would abrogate the fundamental tenant of gifts. In this manner, gift law supports the Declaration of Istanbul by providing an obstacle to transplant
commercialism.
It’s a voting issue--First is ground---allowing them to just remove some prohibitions
means the neg no longer gets the decrim counterplan and prevents
meaningful debate about the process of regulations which is the most
important discussion on the topic
Second is limits---their interpretation allows them to remove any
small sanction or prohibition without changing the overall regime
through regulation which makes being neg impossible
K
legalized organ sales is just the next step of neoliberal exploitation of
the poor’s resources---the result is state-sanctioned necropolitical
violence
Ayan Kassim 13, University of Toronto, Terrains of Terror and Modern Apparatuses of
Destruction: Transplantation, Markets, and the Commoditized Kidney,
digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=auchs&seiredir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fq%3D%2522organ%2Bsa
le%2522%2Bcapitalism%26btnG%3D%26hl%3Den%26as_sdt%3D0%252C14#search=%22orga
n%20sale%20capitalism%22
In this particular formulation, coercion operates covertly. Although vendors seemingly go
to the market by ‘choice’, dire economic constrains is the most important factor in why massive
populations were now willing to alienate a portion of them self to survive; this is what makes
this particular market destructive. Resource extraction from the Global South is not novel but an
integral characteristic in industrial capitalism. If we are to put resource depletion in
historical context, one cannot forget the resounding legacies of environmental and
human depletion and exploitation through colonization and imperialism. 36 What marks the
shift that materialized with the emergence of the black market was the changing nature of resources extracted, the ‘surplus’ kidney, through an increasingly
global system that facilitates this trade. Extracted is another resource from the poor, mostly racialized,
and destitute populations of the world . Though in order to execute the consumption of the kidney, there needed to be fixed
structures in place to make trade possible.
New Trajectories: The Strange Career of the Illegal Kidney With legal strictures enacted in more and more countries to stifle the trade of kidneys for profit, its movement was
limited. Yet voracious demand and new incentives for sellers that were unleashed could not be suppressed. Driven by the complexities of transplantation and the clandestine
fashion in which black markets operate, a concomitant medical phenomena emerged to facilitate the movement of the kidney as a commodity transnationally. Transplant
tourism, defined as “the purchase of a transplant organ abroad that includes access to an organ while bypassing laws, rules, or processes of any or all countries involved”, 37
became the typical means of organ traffic. With transplantation now operating in a transnational space, this appended market in the commercial traffic of living donors and their
kidneys saw a tertiary element emerge that mediated exchange between sellers and recipients: the body broker. 38 It suffices to say that a ‘broker’ need not be limited to just
individuals: organized crime, doctors, medical technicians, border control, and even complicit state bodies can all be considered brokers. Though here I focus on the individual,
non-state or medical, broker. Characteristic of the vigor within the black market is how brokers, recipients, and sellers can all find places to trade goods. Intermediaries need to
coerce both sellers and buyers, in addition to cultivating vast networks with actors at both the national and international level to traverse and usurp geopolitical and territorial
boundaries of nation states,39 a phenomena very similar to the brokers that precipitate the traffic of whole persons (sex workers, migrant labourers) in modern forms of
slavery.40 If successful, the impunity in which these intermediaries operate with is unprecedented. This is part in parcel due to their detailed understanding of how the market
works, exploiting the high the stakes of survival for both sellers and buyers, and capitalizing on the lucrative nature of the trade; in some places body brokers can sell a kidney for
up to 15-20 times what they pay, without the buyer and seller really knowing how much profit was up for grabs.41 In the context of the illegal kidney trade there is an important
relationship between power and sight; actors conferred with optimal visibility wield unprecedented power.42 The body broker is granted this power of ‘sight’ in their mediation
of these high stake transactions.
spatial distance and division between a would-be seller and a would-be recipient is just as salient in
precipitating the trade. In the space of a five-star transplant hospital/hotel where all three ‘actors’ converge, the donor and recipient never meet.43 Kidney
traffic hinges on division of both the body and of the space in which the body is fragmented. No longer a ‘gift’, the commercialized kidney
renders social relationships through exchange irrelevant. With the division of space which
renders donors anonymous, there can be mindful distance of the recipient taking one’s kidney
for their own use; this mindful distance is bolstered by the act of monetary compensation to the
seller as well as keeps the broker relevant.
Furthermore,
New Policy: The Iranian Model and the Dangers of Precedent As the growing realities of the black market surfaced, medical experts and scholars began arguing that a legal,
Transparency, by eliminating shadowy brokers, and the
realities of the black
market. But was that the case? Iran, the only country in the world that has implemented a state regulated
legal trade in kidneys is then an important site of investigation.
regulated market in kidneys would provide the strictures needed to properly facilitate an equitable trade.
hope of alleviating the ‘shortage’ of kidneys by allowing the choice of would-be sellers to sell legally, seemed a better option than the current
The Islamic Republic of Iran sanctioned its legal trade in kidneys as a response to the high rates of renal disease, scarce and expensive materials for dialysis, and growing
income disparity amongst classes; its first organs bank appeared in 1998.44 In this system, kidneys are procured from three sources: living related donors (LRD), living
unrelated donors (LUD), and cadaveric donors (CD), yet the consistent kind of donor is the LUD.45 Compensation for living related and unrelated donors is critical in
precipitating this procurement system yet kidneys from cadaveric donors (i.e, families of the loved one) are not compensated by the government.46 This poses a problem. With
compensation only being offered to living donor populations, cadaveric donation systems are undermined. In addition, although financial incentives are offered for those family
members who decide to give their kidney to a loved one, why put a loved one at risk of invasive surgery if you can simply receive a kidney from a donor in which you have no
social ties to? This state implemented organ procurement strategy legitimates the hierarchization and fetishization of the LUD kidney.
Further, Iran merits special international attention as it was recently said that their waiting list for kidneys has been eliminated. Widely read media outlets like The Economist
published stories in 2006 on the country’s innovation and logical system to procure kidneys,47 citing Dr. Ahad J. Ghods 2002 study in which he claimed Iran elimination of
their waiting lists through a government facilitated trade should be applied in the US.48 Although praised by many as being in the vanguard of eliminating the suffering of those
new scholarship detailed that this idyllic situation may
not the reality on the ground. Anne Griffin recently detailed the dubious parameters in the criteria
used to define the waiting list as ‘eliminated’ in Ghods’s study. Griffin described that poor patients, who
largely have to wait for cadaveric donation, since they cannot afford to compensate LRD or
LUD’s, were still waiting on kidney transplants; the wait was only over for those with fiscal
means.49 In addition, the market solution to the growing problem of income disparity between classes in Iran is troubling. If the waiting list is indeed eliminated, it is
indicative of the desperation in which people are willing to sell their kidneys for compensation. In Iran, supply far outpaces demand in which
has spurred fierce competition amongst would-be donors, with sellers willing to drive down the
price of their kidney to seem more marketable to would-be recipients, has become remarkably
common.50
in the throes of renal disease, while ‘adequately’ compensating donors,
necropower , the means in which the sovereign employs the destruction of
certain populations 51, suffices immensely in this context; here state sanctioned violence
against its largely impoverished subjects is legitimated through state policy.
Although the intentions of facilitating this trade was meant to help both donor and recipients,
studies of kidney vendors in Iran demonstrated that vendors typically never see their profits
make any real impact on their lives. 52 This state authorized destruction, by integrating and
ultimately justifying this systematic violence and fragmentation of bodies via kidney
transplantation, is extremely problematic and irresponsible, particularly since there remains a lack of longitudinal studies of the psychological and
Employing Mbembe’s concept of
social impacts of nephrectomy on sellers. Further, the precedent that the Iranian model set internationally has subsequently given traction to those echoing the need of a legal
market for kidneys, and organs more generally, to keep up with the ‘shortages’.
New Debate The shifting paradigms within the life sciences that markedly informed new modes of seeing and understandings of the body directly impacted discourse
surrounding the legal/illegal, regulated/ unregulated market in kidneys in both the scholarly and public realm.53 The sale of humans is largely considered morally abhorrent
and illegal, but the notion of legalizing the sale of organs quickly gained momentum in medical communities. As Scheper-Hughes details, publications in prominent medical
journals like The Lancet and the Journal of the American Medical Association saw more experts arguing for a market in kidneys over the years.54 Why? Again, transplantations
ability to literally fragment the body, transforming its old meanings and ascribing it new ones, has made this exchange palatable and less morally repugnant to more and more
people in realms such as economics, bioethics, and the transplant community. Further, as Moniruzzaman articulates, “with vested interests, the neoliberal market economy
turns many medical specialists into a “three-in-one man” (a businessman, politician, and doctor).”55
Mostly, proponents argue that incentives for kidney procurement are needed in order to solicit more kidneys. It is argued that this form of sale should no longer be perceived as
repugnant. The repugnance has now shifted to the “sad reality of patients dying and suffering while waiting for a kidney” which is considered unnecessary.56 Most interestingly
in this debate was the reluctant surrender of Robert Veatch, a medical ethicist, former anti-market stance to procure kidneys. In arguing that liberals should now become
proponents of the market solution to renal failure, Veatch’s details that his perspective shifted as the growing failures of social policy in the US drastically increased stratification
of economic classes.57 Because of this failure, Veatch believes the opportunity to sell one’s kidney to become a visible economic actor should no longer be illegal, since social
policy will never be equitable.
studies
of kidney vendors in India 58, Bangladesh 59, Iran 60, and Moldova, 61 variations of the same story
were told: selling a kidney never made any significant impact on donor’s economic lives, despite
what many economists, bioethicists, and medical professionals claim. What vendors did
experience were lost wages, from the post-operative pain and sickness many vendors felt,
feelings of deep regret, and societal expulsion in some grave cases.62 Thus, to promote the
dismemberment of the economic underclass as a means of being economically ‘visible’ is both
ethically and morally irresponsible. Moreover, rarely mentioned in literature advocating legalized markets (regulated and unregulated) are the
risks of nephrectomy to donors or strategies focused on prevention of renal disease.63 These gaps perpetuate idyllic understandings of
the grim realities of post-transplantation success. Realities of the long term impact and costs of
anti-rejection medication and bleak survival rates from when the kidney is purchased and
transplanted is remarkably understated .64
Disturbing is this advocacy of prominent experts who have clout in (re)formulating policy. Especially in the wake of publications from medical and ethnographic
Vote negative to create an ethical grammar with which to challenge
neoliberalism---rejecting the aff’s reformist complacency is
necessary---pedagogical sites like debate are a crucial site for protest
Henry Giroux 14, McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the
English and Cultural Studies Department and a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Ryerson
University, Protesting Youth in an Age of Neoliberal Savagery,
www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/21/protesting-youth-in-an-age-of-neoliberal-savagery/
Within the various regimes of neoliberalism that have emerged particularly in North since the
late 1970s, the ethical grammars that drew attention to the violence and suffering withered
or, as in the United States, seemed to disappear altogether, while dispossessed youth continued
to lose their dignity, bodies, and material goods to the machineries of disposability. The fear of
losing everything, the horror of an engulfing and crippling precarity, the quest to merely survive,
the rise of the punishing state and police violence, along with the impending reality of social and
civil death, became a way of life for the 99 percent in the United States and other countries.
Under such circumstances, youth were no longer the place where society reveals its dreams, but
increasingly hid its nightmares. Against the ravaging policies of austerity and disposability,
“zones of abandonment appeared in which the domestic machinery of violence, suffering,
cruelty, and punishment replaced the values of compassion, social responsibility, and civic
courage” (Biehl 2005:2).
In opposition to such conditions, a belief in the power of collective resistance and politics
emerged once again in 2010, as global youth protests embraced the possibility of deepening and
expanding democracy, rather than rejecting it. Such movements produced a new
understanding of politics based on horizontal forms of collaboration and political
participation, and in doing so resurrected revitalized and much-needed questions about class
power, inequality, financial corruption, and the shredding of the democratic process, as well as
what it meant to create new communities of mutual support, democratic modes of exchange and
governance, and public spheres in which critical dialogue and exchanges could take place (For
an excellent analysis on neoliberal-induced financial corruption, see Anderson 2004).
A wave of youth protests starting in 2010 in Tunisia, and spreading across the globe to the
United States and Europe, eventually posed a direct challenge to neoliberal modes of
domination and the corruption of politics, if not democracy itself (Hardt & Negri 2012). The
legitimating, debilitating, and depoliticizing notion that politics could only be
challenged within established methods of reform and existing relations of power was rejected
outright by students and other young people across the globe. For a couple of years, young
people transformed basic assumptions about what politics is and how the radical
imagination could be mobilized to challenge the basic beliefs of neoliberalism and
other modes of authoritarianism. They also challenged dominant discourses ranging from deficit
reduction and taxing the poor, to important issues that included poverty, joblessness, the
growing unmanageable levels of student debt, and the massive spread of corporate corruption.
As Jonathan Schell argued, youth across the globe were enormously successfully in unleashing
“a new spirit of action”, an expression of outrage fueled less by policy demands than by a
cry of collective moral and political indignation whose message was
‘Enough!’ to a corrupt political, economic and media establishment that hijacked the world’s
wealth for itself… sabotaging the rule of law, waging interminable savage and futile wars,
plundering the world’s finite resources, and lying about all this to the public [while] threatening
Earth’s life forms into the bargain. (Schell 2011)
Yet, some theorists have recently argued that little has changed since 2011, in spite of this
expression of collective rage and accompanying demonstrations by youth groups across the
globe.
The Collapse or Reconfiguration of Youthful Protests?
Costas Lapavitsas and Alex Politaki, writing in The Guardian, argue that as the “economic and social disaster unfolded in 2012 and 2013”, youth in
Greece, France, Portugal, and Spain have largely been absent from “politics, social movements and even from the spontaneous social networks that
have dealt with the worst of the catastrophe” (Lapavitsas & Politaki 2014). Yet, at the same time, they
insist that more and more young
people have been “attracted to nihilistic ends of the political spectrum, including varieties of anarchism and
fascism” (Lapavitsas & Politaki 2014). This suggests they have hardly been absent from politics. On the contrary, those youth moving to the right are
being mobilized around needs that simply promise the swindle of fulfillment. This
does not suggest youth are becoming
invisible as much as it implies that the economic crisis has not been matched by a crisis of ideas,
one that would propel young people towards left political parties or social formations that
effectively articulate a critical understanding of the present economic and political crisis, and a strategy
to create and sustain a radical democratic political movement that avoids cooptation of the
prevailing economic and political systems of oppression now dominating the United States, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, France,
and England, among other countries.
This critique of youthful protesters as a suspect generation is repeated in greater detail by
Andrew R. Myers inStudent Pulse (Myers 2012). He argues that deteriorating economic and
educational conditions for youth all over Europe have created not only a profound sense of
political pessimism among young people, but also a dangerous, if not cynical, distrust towards
established politics. Myers seems less concerned about the conditions that have written young
people out of jobs, a decent education, imposed a massive debt on them, and offers up a future
of despair and dashed hopes than the alleged unfortunate willingness of young people to turn
their back on traditional parties. Myers argues rightly that globalization is the enemy of young
people and is undermining democracy, but he wrongly insists that traditional social democratic
parties are the only vehicles and hope left for real reform. As such, Myers argues that youth who
exhibit distrust towards established governments and call for the construction of another world
are a sign of political defeat, if not cynicism itself. Unfortunately, with his lament about how
little youth are protesting today and about their lack of engagement in the traditional forms of
politics, he endorses, in the end, a defense of those left/liberal parties that embrace social
democracy and the new labor policies of centrist-left coalitions. His rebuke borders on bad faith,
given his criticism of young people for not engaging in electoral politics and joining with unions,
both of which, for many youth, rightfully represent elements of a reformist politics they reject.
It is ironic that both of these critiques of the alleged passivity of youth and the failure of their politics have nothing to say about the generations of
adults that failed these young people — that is, what disappears in these narratives is the fact that an older generation accepted the “realization that one
generation no longer holds out a hand to the next” (Knott 2011:ix). What is lacking here is any critical sense regarding the historical conditions and
dismal lack of political and moral responsibility of an adult generation who shamefully bought into and reproduced, at least since the 1970s,
governments and social orders wedded to war, greed, political corruption, xenophobia, and willing acceptance of the dictates of a ruthless form of
neoliberal globalization.
In fact, what was distinctive about the protesting youth across the globe was their rejection to
the injustices of neoliberalism and their attempts to redefine the meaning of politics and
democracy, while fashioning new forms of revolt (Hardt & Negri 2012; Graeber 2013). Among
their many criticism, youthful protesters argued vehemently that traditional social democratic,
left, and liberal parties suffered from an “extremism of the center” that had become
complicitous with the corporate and ruling political elites, resulting in their embrace of the
inequities of a form of casino capitalism which assumed that the market should govern the
entirety of social life, not just the economic realm (Hardt & Negri 2012:88).
Resurrecting the Radical Imagination
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have argued that what united the Occupy Movement in the US
with other movements globally was their emphasis on direct action and their rejection of
modernist structures of representation and politics, including support for elections and
traditional political parties, which they considered corrupt. As such, they did not reject the
project of democracy, but asked where it had gone and how they could “engage with it again”
and win back “the political power of the citizen worker” (Hardt & Negri 2012:29). Commenting
on the radical nature of such youth protests, David Graeber argues that the potential of the new
youth movements, if not their threat to both conservatives and liberals alike, is that they were
more “willing to embrace positions more radical than anything seen, on a mass scale” in a
number of countries, particularly “their explicit appeal to class politics, a complete
reconstruction of the existing political system, [and] a call (for many at least) not just to reform
capitalism but to begin dismantling it entirely” (Graeber 2013:69-70).
What recent critics of the current state of youth protests miss is that the real issue is not
whether the occupy movements throughout Europe and the US have petered out, but rather,
what have we learned from them, how have they been transformed, and what are we going to do
about it? More specifically, what can be done to revitalize these rebellions into an international
movement capable of effecting real change? Rather than claiming that youth have failed
protesting the politics of austerity, neoliberal economies of stagnation, and the corrupt rule of
finance capital, it is more important to recognize the ways in which such actions are undermined
by the continued struggle for survival, and the threat and reality of state violence. The great
“crime” of the youthful protesters is that they have embraced the utopian notion that there is an
alternative to capitalism and, in doing so, are fighting back against a systemic war on the radical
imagination, the belief that everything is for consumption, and that the only value that matters
is exchange value.
The protesters in various countries have not failed. On the contrary, they realize that they need
more time to fully develop the visions, strategies, cultural apparatuses, infrastructures,
organizations, and alliances necessary to more fully realize their attempts to replace the older,
corrupt social orders with new ones that are not simply democratic, but have the support of the
people who inhabit them. Rather than disappearing, many protesters have focused on more
specific struggles, such as getting universities to disinvest in coal industries, fighting the rise of
student debt, organizing against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, protesting austerity cuts,
creating free social services for the poor and excluded, and developing educational spaces that
can provide the formative culture necessary for creating the needs, identities, and modes of
agency capable of democratic relations (Zeese 2013; Taaffe 2013; Brahinsky 2014). At the same
time, they are participating in everyday struggles that, as Thomas Piketty points out in Capital in
the Twenty-First Century, make clear that free-market capitalism is not only responsible for
“terrifying” inequalities in both wealth and income, but also produces anti-democratic
oligarchies (Piketty 2014:571). And it is precisely through various attempts to create spaces in
which democratic culture can be cultivated that the radical imagination can be liberated
from the machinery of social and political death produced by casino capitalism.
What was once considered impossible becomes possible through the development of
worldwide youth protests that speak to a future that is being imagined, but waiting to be brought
to fruition.
PTX
The GOP is poised for huge gains in the House now
Albert L. Hunt 9/29, Bloomberg View columnist, “Keep an eye on the House,”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-house-races-could-surpriseperspec-0930-20140929-story.html
the
House elections matter , both in terms of the overall outcome and in some interesting particulars.¶ There are
competitive House races from New Hampshire to Iowa to Arizona, but many of the closest
ones are in the Democratic strongholds — California, New York and Illinois.¶ The good news for Republicans is that a
majority of these are held by Democrats, who are fighting to retain them. A bipartisan
redistricting commission in California has successfully created more competitive districts. As a result,
almost no one expects the Democrats to reduce the current Republican majority,
and Republican optimists see their party adding as many as 20 seats.¶ "It will be a victory for
Democrats if they hold their losses under five ," says David Wasserman, the House expert for The
Cook Political Report.
Nevertheless, though they lack the dramatic narrative of the battle for the Senate majority or for the governors' mansions in Florida or Michigan,
Organ sales face strong opposition from social conservatives
Alvin Roth 14, Craig and Susan McCaw professor of economics at Stanford University and the
Gund professor of economics and business administration emeritus at Harvard University, Jan
19 2014, “ Cash for Kidneys: The Case for a Market for Organs. Becker and Elias in the WSJ,”
http://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2014/01/cash-for-kidneys-case-for-market-for.html
Note that the
prohibition on organ sales is not some law that remains on the books merely through
inattention. This is illustrated by the recent events surrounding the tug of war over whether it might be legal to compensate (even) bone marrow
donors. Briefly, the ninth circuit court of appeals issued a ruling that said that in some circumstances bone marrow donors could be compensated, but
then the Department of Health and Human Services proposed regulations that would keep the ban in place. So the
opposition to organ
sales--even to compensating bone marrow donors--is alive and well .¶ But things don't go all in one direction. Bob Slonim reminds me
that while we rely on unpaid donation of whole blood in the United States, most of our supply of blood plasma comes from paid donors.¶ I've
participated in some efforts to understand better the repugnance to compensating organ donors, e.g. here's a survey with Steve Leider about who
disapproves of kidney sales, and some correlates of such disapproval:¶ Leider, Stephen and Alvin E. Roth, ''Kidneys for sale: Who disapproves, and
why? American Journal of Transplantation 10 (May), 2010, 1221-1227.¶ More recently, Muriel Niederle and I conducted a different sort of survey,
which assessed the relative willingness of Americans to contemplate monetary rewards for the heroism associated with kidney donation:¶ "Niederle,
Muriel and Alvin E. Roth, “Philanthropically Funded Heroism Awards for Kidney Donors?” forthcoming in Law & Contemporary Problems, 77:3,
2014.¶ Judd Kessler and I have a paper forthcoming in the American Economic Review papers and proceedings (May 2014) called "Getting More
Organs for Transplantation," in which we summarize the issue this way:¶ "Kidney
sales are often the leading example of
a repugnant transaction cited by those who would put stricter limits on markets in general (e.g. Sandel
2012, 2013), because of their sense that such sales arouse widespread opposition . A representative sample survey of
Americans conducted by Leider and Roth (2010) suggests that disapproval of kidney sales correlates with other
socially conservative attitudes , but that it does not rise to the level of disapproval of other repugnant transactions such as
prostitution. In addition, there is evidence that the manner of the payment to an organ donor may mitigate some of the repugnance concerns. Niederle
and Roth (forthcoming 2014) find that payments to non-directed kidney donors are deemed more acceptable when they arise as a reward for heroism
and public service than when they are viewed as a payment for kidneys."
Alienating social conservatives wrecks GOP advances---they’re a
crucial constituency
Napp Nazworth 13, Christian Post Reporter, Jul 19 2013, “GOP Needs Social Conservatives
More Than Economic Conservatives, Study Suggests,”
http://www.christianpost.com/news/gop-needs-social-conservatives-more-than-economicconservatives-study-suggests-100469/
Social conservatism is more important to the Republican base and holds a greater opportunity
for expanding the Republican base than economic conservatism, a new study suggests.¶ Since the 2012 election, there has been a debate among
WASHINGTON –
Republicans over why they lost and the best path forward. Some argue the party needs to minimize the importance of social issues and focus on its economic agenda. Others,
such as Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, have warned that
ignoring social conservatives would greatly harm
the party.¶ After the Republican National Committee released a report in April hinting that the party needs to de-emphasize its social conservative agenda, Perkins
and 12 other social conservative leaders sent a letter to the RNC.¶ "The Republican Party makes a huge historical mistake
if it intends to dismantle this coalition by marginalizing social conservatives and avoiding the issues
which attract and energize them by the millions," the letter stated.¶ That question of whether social conservatism or economic
conservatism is more important to the Republican Party seems to have been answered in a collaborative
project, called the "2013 Economic Values Survey," by two left-of-center organizations – the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution.¶ At a Thursday
Brookings Institution panel discussion introducing the findings, E. J. Dionne, a senior fellow at the Brookings and a Washington Post columnist, echoed the message of social
conservatives.¶ "Among the various brands of conservatism, economic conservatism has the weakest hold in American public opinion," Dionne said.¶ Using composites of
different questions from the poll, the study developed scales of theological orientation, social orientation and economic orientation. Comparing the conservatives in each of those
three categories, economic conservatism is the least popular with the American public. Thirty-eight percent of Americans are theological conservatives, 29 percent are social
conservatives, and only 25 percent are economic conservatives.¶ Additionally, among Democrats, about one-third, 31 percent, are theological conservatives and 19 percent are
social conservatives, but only three percent of Democrats are economic conservatives. This suggests that Republicans have a better opportunity to attract Democratic defectors
with a theologically conservative or a socially conservative message than an economically conservative message.¶ Similarly, Dionne pointed out, the data suggests an opportunity
for the Democratic Party to attract Republican defectors. With Republicans' weaker commitment to economic conservatism, Democrats could attempt to attract some
Republicans to its cause with a liberal economic message, a more moderate social conservative agenda and a friendlier tone on theological conservative sensitivities.¶ During the
the data clearly indicate that the
social conservatives are correct.¶ "If you look at these data, and you look at who conservatives are, it turns out that social conservatives loom
larger as part of that constituency and more consistently than economic conservatives do," he added.
question and answer period, Dionne commented that he recognized his point was entering a debate among Republicans, but
Expanding the GOP majority is key to weaken Tea Party influence in
Congress
Jason Easley 9/24, PoliticsUSA, “Momentum Moves Towards Democrats As Republicans
Get Worried About the 2014 Election,”http://www.politicususa.com/2014/09/02/momentummoves-democrats-republicans-worried-2014-election.html
It was vital for Republicans to expand their House majority this year because in 2016, there could be a
Hillary wave coming, and in 2020 districts will be redrawn again. Newly redrawn districts could mean the end of the current gerrymandered House.¶
The Republican establishment also desperately wants to give John Boehner enough of a
majority to form a tea party buffer. The internal goal has been to reduce the tea party’s
power in the House , but that is looking less and less likely to happen
Tea Party influence collapses the Iran deal
Leslie H. Gelb 14, President Emeritus and Board Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations, and Michael Kramer, “R.I.P. Republican Internationalism,” Democracy Journal Issue
31, Winter 2014, http://www.democracyjournal.org/31/rip-republican-internationalism.php
There is no doubt that
the Tea Party is going to make international negotiations difficult. Anything that requires give and take—such
as forging decent working relations with China—will face hostility from those who won’t tolerate any give at all. In fact, some, like Senator Rand Paul, have talked only about the “take”—threatening a trade war
the most vexing problem facing
the West involves Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The chance to improve relations with Tehran, a potentially
monumental event of Cold War-ending proportions, will require the Obama Administration to offer proposals
that not only protect American interests but are acceptable to Iran as well. That will mean reducing, and over time ending, the
sanctions that are crippling Iran’s economy. But in many instances, rolling back sanctions will require congressional approval,
which will require House acquiescence, which in turn will require Tea Party assent. And that is just not likely, especially if Israel continues to oppose any serious
diminution of economic pressure. As the elements of a possible deal with Iran become clearer, Marco Rubio’s position, which is likely shared by other Tea Party leaders, is virtually
indistinguishable from Israel’s. Rubio has said he will support lifting sanctions only if Iran agrees to “completely abandon
with China in the quixotic hope that such a stance will cause Beijing to pressure nations like North Korea to bend to U.S. wishes.¶ Perhaps
any capability for enrichment or reprocessing” of nuclear materials. This is a nonstarter for Tehran , since it
would require nothing less than Iran’s total capitulation.¶ It is already extremely hard for any U.S. President, especially a
Democrat, to make deals with presumed devils. Richard Nixon may have established a new working relationship with China and Ronald Reagan negotiated
far-reaching arms control agreements with the Soviet Union. But neither accomplishment would have happened without the active support of both Republican and Democratic internationalists. If the
Tea Party continues to extend its sway over congressional Republicans— and it remains to be seen
if a plausible countertrend can succeed—the ability of Barack Obama to embrace the essential compromises of diplomacy
could face an insurmountable wall .
Nuclear war
Philip Stevens 13, associate editor and chief political commentator for the Financial Times,
Nov 14 2013, “The four big truths that are shaping the Iran talks,”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af170df6-4d1c-11e3-bf32-00144feabdc0.html
six-power negotiations with Tehran to curb
Iran’s nuclear programme may yet succeed or fail. But wrangling between the US and France on the terms of an acceptable deal should
not allow the trees to obscure the forest. The organising facts shaping the negotiations have not changed.¶ The first of these is that Tehran’s acquisition of a
bomb would be more than dangerous for the Middle East and for wider international security. It would most likely set off
a nuclear arms race that would see Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt signing up to the
nuclear club . The nuclear non-proliferation treaty would be shattered. A future regional conflict
could draw Israel into launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike. This is not a region
obviously susceptible to cold war disciplines of deterrence .¶ The second ineluctable reality is that
Iran has mastered the nuclear cycle. How far it is from building a bomb remains a subject of debate. Different intelligence agencies give different
The who-said-what game about last weekend’s talks in Geneva has become a distraction. The
answers. These depend in part on what the spooks actually know and in part on what their political masters want others to hear. The progress of an Iranian warhead programme
is one of the known unknowns that have often wreaked havoc in this part of the world.¶ Israel points to an imminent threat. European agencies are more relaxed, suggesting
Tehran is still two years or so away from a weapon. Western diplomats broadly agree that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not taken a definitive decision to step over the line. What
Iran has been seeking is what diplomats call a breakout capability – the capacity to dash to a bomb before the international community could effectively mobilise against it.¶ The
third fact – and this one is hard for many to swallow – is that neither a negotiated settlement nor the air strikes long favoured by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister,
can offer the rest of the world a watertight insurance policy.¶ It should be possible to construct a deal that acts as a plausible restraint – and extends the timeframe for any
bombing
Iran’s nuclear sites could certainly delay the programme, perhaps for a couple of years. But, assuming that even the hawkish Mr
Netanyahu is not proposing permanent war against Iran, air strikes would not end it. ¶ You cannot bomb knowledge
and technical expertise. To try would be to empower those in Tehran who say the regime will be
safe only when, like North Korea, it has a weapon. So when Barack Obama says the US will never allow Iran to get the bomb he is indulging in, albeit
understandable, wishful thinking.¶ The best the international community can hope for is that, in return for
a relaxation of sanctions, Iran will make a judgment that it is better off sticking with a threshold
capability. To put this another way, if Tehran does step back from the nuclear brink it will be because of its
own calculation of the balance of advantage.¶ The fourth element in this dynamic is that Iran now has a
leadership that, faced with the severe and growing pain inflicted by sanctions, is prepared to talk . There is
breakout – but no amount of restrictions or intrusive monitoring can offer a certain guarantee against Tehran’s future intentions.¶ By the same token,
nothing to say that Hassan Rouhani, the president, is any less hard-headed than previous Iranian leaders, but he does seem ready to weigh the options.
DA
Courts are currently reluctant to recognize individuals’ property
rights to sell their body parts despite commercialization of body
products like blood and hair
Remigius N. Nwabueze 11, Senior Lecturer at Southampton Law School, Visiting Prof of
Law at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, “Legal paradigms of human tissues,”
Chapter 9 in Human Tissue Research: A European perspective on the ethical and legal
challenges, p 92-3, google books
As regards non-regenerative transplantable organs, judges tend to be reluctant to
recognize property rights in human tissues . However, non-property protection exposes an organ, such as a kidney, awaiting transplantation to
unauthorized expropriation or destruction by third parties. Consider the case of an excised kidney donated to a done and awaiting lodgement in the body of the intended recipient.24 If the kidney is deliberately or
negligently redirected to a third-party recipient, a wrong has been committed, but it is not clear that legal remedies are available to the donor and the done (Nwabueze 2008). In the absence of statutory and
criminal law considerations, significant remedial problems arise. In the case of deliberate (or intentional) redirection or misdirection, the act in Wilkinson v. Downton25 might apply, but its utility is undermined
by current controversy regarding the principle of the case; it is not yet clear whether Wilkinson actually established a cause of action for intentional tort. There are suggestions that Wilkinson established only a
cause of action for negligence.26¶ A claim in negligence, on the other hand, suffers from problems relating to causation and proof of damage. Arguably, battery claims are not applicable to separated body parts or
organs. In any case, the initial consent to the harvesting of the organ is likely to defeat an allegation of battery. Consent-based actions might not be of much avail since consent does not confer continuing control
over human tissues (Laurie 2002; Price 2003). An action in unjust enrichment is unlikely to succeed unless the misdirection was for the benefit of the wrongdoer, for instance to benefit a relative of the transplant
surgeon. A claim in privacy is probably unavailing. The complaint is that an organ donated for the benefit of a particular recipient is lost through its misdirection, not that the donor or donee’s privacy is infringed.
Similarly, a claim in contract is hardly relevant. The misdirection is tortious but not contractual. Moreover, the statutory regulation of organs based on the principles of altruism (in most jurisdictions) militates
against importing contractual principles into the context of organ transplantation. The above outline seems to leave property-based actions as the most opportune for the claimant in the hypothetical case under
Matthews (1983) observed that where non-renewable organs are removed from the
body ‘one would have thought that as with blood, hair and the like that person had the
first and best right to possession, though presumably one might transfer that right, as blood donors transfer it to
consideration. Interestingly,
a hospital or blood bank’; accordingly, he concluded that ‘parts of the body once removed should be regarded as the “property”, at least in a possessory sense, of the person from whom taken’ (ibid.:227).
Unfortunately, the courts have not generally treated kidneys and other non-renewable
organs as property. The Colavito line of cases is illustrative .27 There, the court held that no
property right existed in a misdirected, but histo-compatible, kidney.¶ 9.4.2 Human tissues for research¶ Where human tissues are
destined for research or employed in the research process, the courts are more likely (probably on policy grounds) to deny the
property rights of sources as against those of the users. This judicial inclination is evident
in Moore and Greenberg above. A more recent example is Washington University v. Catalona,28 where Dr.
Catalona, an established cancer researcher at Washington University, moved to Northwestern University and sought to take with him some (cancer research) tissues from Washington University’s biorepository.
Tissues in the biorepository came from many sources, including participants in cancer research conducted by Dr Catalona. Before moving to Northwestern University, Dr. Catalona got some of his research
participants to sign documents which purported to mandate Washington University to release their tissues to Dr Catalona or Northwestern University. The claim was resisted by Washington University.
Interestingly, all the parties in the case based their claims on property. As Limbaugh, the Senior District Judge realized, the ‘sole issue determinative…of this lawsuit is the issue of ownership’ (ibid.994).
Allowing compensation for organs necessarily shifts common law
toward recognition of property rights in the body
Laurel R. Siegel 2K, JD candidate @ Emory University School of Law, Sumer 2000 “REENGINEERING THE LAWS OF ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION,” 49 Emory L.J. 917, lexis
Compensation systems would change the nature of altruistic organ donation. The theory states that people may be more willing to provide
organs if they receive compensation. n283 Several types of compensation systems have been proposed, each attacking the organ shortage in a slightly different way, but
with the same ultimate goal - to provide remuneration. Compensation systems require development of common law to
increase the property rights of individuals after death. Additionally, a compensation system
could only go into effect if NOTA and the 1987 UAGA amendments are repealed or
amended. n284 NOTA, however, allows all other participants in the organ procurement and transplantation process, except the donor, to receive compensation. Arguably, the donor should receive
compensation as well.¶ Compensation systems have several advantages. First, they help to make up for the organs wasted under the donative system. n285 Second, if a person sells his organs, there may be less
emotion and tension involved than if an altruistic donation was made out of love or guilt. n286¶ Primarily, dissatisfaction with the proposed compensation systems concerns the lack of the customary altruism.
n287 Critics fear that the lack of altruism would upset society as well as reduce the organ supply. n288 Selling organs would take away from the traditional notion of providing a generous act in the face of tragedy.
n289 Allowing sales of organs encroaches into a sacred area where such sales are controversial. The notion of profiting from the sales of body parts is repulsive to many. Critics of compensation systems have a
serious concern with coercion of the poor. n290 Destitute people, who otherwise might not chose to donate organs, might feel compelled to sell their organs. n291 Another concern involves the allocation of organs.
Under a compensation [*951] system, those who could afford organs would have a greater chance of receiving them. n292 Finally, allowing sales of organs could promote family strife due to pressure to sell organs.
n293¶ a. Inter Vivos Market for Organs¶ In an inter vivos organ market, organs would be considered an ordinary commodity to be sold for a profit. System regulators would have to decide where to draw the line selling non-essential organs such as kidneys versus selling essential organs such as the heart. The theory for such a system is based on the notion that all parties in the organ donation process are compensated,
thus the donor should be included as well. n294¶ Creating a market for organs may actually fail to increase the supply because otherwise altruistic donations may be curtailed. n295 It also risks offending many
citizens and takes advantage of the poor who may not otherwise choose to donate or sell organs.¶ b. Futures Market¶ A less controversial version of a compensation system is a futures market.
A futures
market would allow healthy individuals during life to contract for the sale of their body tissue for
delivery after their death. n296 Under this regime, if the donor's organs are successfully harvested and transplanted, the donor's estate would receive payment. n297 Like the current
donation system, people would sign donor cards, but unlike the current system, the donor or vendor would receive compensation. n298 Proponents of this system claim it avoids ethical problems. First, by not
using live donors, proponents claim it does not exploit the poor. n299 Second, the system does not deal with allocation so the [*952] rich will not have greater access to organs than the poor. n300 Third, people
This system requires creating and legally enforcing
property rights in the decedent's body . This system is only hypothetical and has not yet been attempted in any jurisdiction. If implemented in the
will be selling their own organs, so relatives will not have to participate. n301¶
current system, it would clearly violate NOTA, because it involves sales of organs. In addition, it might exploit the poor because only the poor would have incentive to sell their organs, unless the price was high
enough for moderately wealthy individuals to be interested. Even though the system does not deal with allocation, the poor will naturally be discriminated against because they may be unable to afford the organs if
Medicaid or other government assistance does not cover them.¶ c. Death Benefits¶ A death benefits system, while not market-based, is a third type of compensation system. Such a system would merely provide
incentives to relatives of the decedent in exchange for donating the decedent's organs. n302 Examples of incentives include estate tax deductions, funeral expense allow-ances, and college education benefits. n303
As illustrated above, Pennsylvania is experimenting with a death benefits system in its newly enacted legislation. n304 ¶ Proponents argue that a death benefits system does not conflict with the current altruistic
system. n305 Proponents also assert that a death benefits system does not violate NOTA's prohibition of organ sales, because Congress did not intend to include this kind of compensation. n306 With respect to
the Pen-nsylvania law, proponents claim funeral expenses could be a reasonable expense exempted from the NOTA prohibition. n307 They claim that because money does not go directly to donors or beneficiaries,
the payment is not technically for organs. n308 Opponents claim that a death benefits system con-stitutes the sale of organs; indirect compensation is given in exchange for one's [*953] organs. This proposal, set
up as a pilot program administered by individual states, is promising.¶ B. Suggestions¶ First, solutions must be found for the problems of the current system, in which an outright market is inappropriate, but in
which incentive programs and public health education could serve as successful boosts to the organ supply. For the second stage, after technology alters the status and supply of organs, society can plan a solution
for the future. Only at that point could a full-fledged market be an acceptable, ethical medium to exchange organs.¶ 1. The Current System¶ As illustrated above, problems are inherent in the current organ
transplantation system. Society must cope with the problems as they exist today, using currently available technology and resources. The best way to address the immediate organ shortage is to administer pilot
programs providing incentives for organ donations, following the lead of Pennsylvania. Congress should propose an Amendment to NOTA that would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to
oversee pilot programs. Compensation would rise incrementally, beginning with small payments, such as funeral expenses or hospital bills. The prohibition of sales of organs should remain in place for live organs
because allowing sales of live organs jeopardizes existing life and brings into play many ethical issues. Thus, the amendment would only apply to organs of decedents.¶ In addition to avoiding the ethical problems
inherent in a market for organs, allowing an incentive system would probably increase awareness of donation, increase actual donation, and fairly and tactfully compensate the donor. The approach is an important
bridge to the future when engineered organs will make compensation systems viable. Most importantly, more patients, who would otherwise die, will benefit from receiving life-saving organs.¶ Organ donation
does not have to be perceived as a grim, avoidable topic; donating organs transforms death into a positive experience - essentially bestowing the gift of life. In addition to the pilot programs, governmental efforts
should focus on public health education. If the public is made more aware of the plight, the decision to donate organs would be made prior to death. This tactic would avoid difficult, uncomfortable situations for
families and doctors, which often prevent donation. Many states already have [*954] implemented organ donor awareness funds, funded through donations when renewing driver's licenses or filing taxes. n309
Similar programs must be established. Public health officials should talk to high school students about organ donation. Special task forces could explain the organ transplant system to people, in the form of
television commercials or advertisements in magazines. The erection of billboards with organ donation messages would implant the seed in people's minds.¶ 2. The Future System¶ The current solution only
affects organs from decedents. In the foreseeable future, technology will create live organs from existing cells and biodegradable scaffolds. When that occurs, the organ shortage will no longer be a problem. But in
order to have potentially unlimited organs, cell donation must occur. This may eventually be done individually at birth, but phased in by adults contributing to a generic pool. Will these donors be compensated for
their pre-organ donation? The donation of cells differs from a functioning organ and probably lies outside of organ transplantation laws. Most likely, providing compensation for this stage would be allowable and
allowing incentives
to donors is a sound idea. This can only become a reality if the common law develops, allowing a
property right in live tissue and organs. This will be established in the marketplace as
long as common law and statutory law do not prohibit sales.
beneficial. An individual donating his cells would face no risk to his health by donating. Fewer ethical issues are involved. Therefore, for the organ system of the future,
Wrecks biotech---imposes prohibitive transaction costs that interfere
with research and commercialization
Charlotte H. Harrison 2, Fellow in Medical Ethics, Harvard Medical School; J.D. 1984,
Harvard Law School; M.P.H. 2000, Harvard School of Public Health, “ARTICLE: Neither Moore
nor the Market: Alternative Models for Compensating Contributors of Human Tissue,” 28 Am.
J. L. and Med. 77, lexis
To the American mind, one obvious solution to the ethical inadequacies of the current system is market-based: people should be
deemed the legal owners of their body parts, and compensation should be determined through
a "direct market between buyer and seller with prices based on what people are willing to pay and accept." n51 This alternative, already implemented in occasional
individual negotiations, n52 directly addresses some of the ethical problems just surveyed. It also entails serious ethical complications of its own, including risks to the doctor-patient or researcher-subject
relationship and other negative consequences for larger society. Examination of four major objections to the property-rights approach begins to suggest the parameters of a more satisfactory alternative.¶ [*86] ¶
A. Economic Inefficiency¶ If one accepts the Moore court's assumption that the progress of biotechnology research is highly beneficial to society, it follows that the economic efficiency of such research should be
the recognition of property rights in every potentially useful tissue
would present the biotechnology industry with an unacceptable choice: either
become mired in costly and time-consuming transactions with numerous individual tissue
sources, n53 or risk failing to secure clear title to the tissue samples on which patents and
products may be based. n54¶ In an analogous context--involving intangible or intellectual property rather than tangible, personal property--Heller and Eisenberg have detailed the
carefully protected. Not only the Moore court, but other jurists and commentators have argued that
sample
inefficiencies that can result from what they regard as excessive protection of individual property rights in biomedical research. n55 In particular, they have argued that progress in biotechnology is unduly
burdened by the existence of too many intellectual property rights in basic research tools. Heller and Eisenberg's analysis of this intellectual property market serves to highlight, by analogy, problems that are likely
to be exacerbated if individual tissue contributors are deemed to hold personal property rights in their blood and body parts.¶ Heller and Eisenberg's argument takes its cue from Garrett Hardin's classic analysis
of the problems that arise when people hold property in common. n56 Hardin concluded that people tend to overuse such "commons property" (e.g., air or water) in a way that is ultimately tragic. Without the
incentives of private property or the limits of other social arrangements, each person's rational pursuit of self-interest leads to greater and greater exploitation of a common resource until the whole is exhausted or
ruined. This, in Hardin's terms, is "the tragedy of the commons." n57¶ According to Heller and Eisenberg, an opposite but similar tragedy of the "anti-commons" occurs when people hold too little in common-that is, when too many people have a private right to prevent others from using property of mutual interest. n58 In the biotechnology industry, companies must strike a separate bargain with every party whose
intellectual or tangible property might be needed to produce a commercial product. It would be better, Heller and Eisenberg suggest, if fewer such property rights were recognized. Often the rights-bearing parties
are academic researchers, whom Heller and Eisenberg characterize as inefficient bargainers with limited competence in the field, cognitive biases that lead them to overvalue their assets and different strategic
objectives from their industrial negotiating partners. Heller and Eisenberg contend that negotiating with such parties absorbs undue time and resources from industry. n59¶ In understanding the implications of
this view for human tissue transactions, it is important to separate concerns about efficiency from differences in strategic or policy goals. The time-consuming nature of academic/industrial negotiations is often
due, in part, to the substantive social values expressed in public technology policy. [*87] For example, existing federal policy seeks to ensure that academic inventions made under federal grants and licensed
exclusively to industry are actually used in the development of products. The rights are not merely to be held defensively (i.e., to prevent competitors from marketing a similar product) or allowed to languish for
too long in a company's portfolio if other projects take on greater commercial priority. n60 To implement this policy, universities commonly require their exclusive licensees to agree to "due diligence"
commitments for the development and marketing of products. These commitments can take time to negotiate and can conflict with companies' natural preference to control proprietary rights. n61 The conflict is
rooted in a difference between public and private objectives rather than in mere inefficiency. In addition, each party has a strategic interest in obtaining what it deems to be an acceptable financial return. Of
course, both public and private parties may share a larger aim to promote the development of new and better healthcare products, and it is reasonable to consider how the allocation of property rights affects that
long-term goal.¶ Individual tissue contributors may have interests analogous to those of government-funded researchers and licensors. In addition to financial considerations, these interests may include the
promotion of research on a disease or condition of concern to the contributor. In a market that serves the dual purposes of medical care and entrepreneurship, the extent of protection afforded to a tissue
contributor's non-economic interests is a public policy question that goes beyond the scope of this article. It should be considered in conjunction with, but not subsumed by, concerns about financial returns and
On grounds of economic efficiency alone, however, criticism like Heller and Eisenberg's would
likely be warranted if property rights were extended to individual tissue contributors. If
individuals sought to negotiate the terms under which their body parts were made available for
research, inefficiencies could result from several factors . Many tissue samples would be
acquired either in clinical situations, in which research uses might not yet have been
considered, or in research projects at an early stage of development, in which the eventual
commercial utility of such materials could be hard to predict. n62 It is likely that the majority of such materials
would never be used commercially in such a way as to warrant a significant royalty. n63 In these circumstances, transaction costs
for securing the rights to all samples from their individual contributors could be prohibitive . This would likely be true whether contributors
efficiency.¶
negotiated directly with companies or with intermediaries such as academic medical centers or private physician practices.
Medical research and innovation is key to solve environmental
pathogens
Gerard A. Cangelosi 5, Prof of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and
Adjunct Prof of Epidemiology and of Global Health at the University of Washington, PhD in
Microbiology from UC Davis, Nancy E. Freitag, PhD, Prof in the Dept of Microbiology and
Immunology at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Medicine, and Merry R. Buckley,
Ph.D. in environmental microbiology at Michigan State University, “From Outside to Inside:
Environmental Microorganisms as Human Pathogens,”
http://academy.asm.org/index.php/environmental-microbiology-ecology-evolution/553-fromoutside-to-inside-environmental-microorganisms-as-human-pathogens
The key difference between environmental pathogens and other human pathogens is their
ability to survive and thrive outside the host . Their widespread occurrence in the environment makes them difficult to monitor and
control. Inroads have been made to understand the persistence of these organisms in the environment, the reservoirs they inhabit, the ways they exchange virulence factors, and
a great deal more research is needed. By grouping together phylogenetically diverse organisms
under the umbrella of "environmental pathogens," it is hoped that the topic can gain the critical mass
needed for sustained progress. ¶ Colloquium participants examined other research needs for the field, including the diagnostic and environmental
their diversity, but
technologies that will be necessary for taking the next steps. It was agreed that because of the complex nature of studying organisms that can exist in the environment and in
human hosts, work in this area is best carried out in an interdisciplinary fashion with coordinated input from medical, molecular, and environmental microbiologists, specialists
The development of improved diagnostic
techniques is critical for accurate assessment of health risks and potential human or
animal population impact associated with environmental pathogens. ¶ If the impacts of these diseases
are to be effectively controlled, the techniques used to monitor and control infections by
environmental pathogens—including interventions, exposure controls, drugs, and vaccines—
require improvement . The processes surrounding drug and vaccine development must be tailored to the special problem of environmental pathogens,
in host responses, epidemiologists, ecologists, environmental engineers, and public health experts.
which often strike small numbers of individuals or individuals in less developed areas of the world and, therefore, offer less potential for drug development profit than more
common diseases. A challenge exists, therefore, in meeting the need for targeted, specific interventions, including development of drugs and vaccines for infections by
environmental agents, in the face of a lack of financial incentive for development of these tools.
Causes extinction---disease defense doesn’t apply
Arturo Casadevall 12, M.D., Ph.D. in Biochemistry from New York University, Leo and Julia
Forchheimer Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Albert
Einstein College of Medicine, former editor of the ASM journal Infection and Immunity, “The
future of biological warfare,” Microbial Biotechnology Volume 5, Issue 5, pages 584–587,
September 2012, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-7915.2012.00340.x/full
In considering the importance of biological warfare as a subject for concern it
is worthwhile to review the known
existential threats. At this time this writer can identify at three major existential threats to humanity: (i) large-scale
thermonuclear war followed by a nuclear winter, (ii) a planet killing asteroid impact and (iii) infectious disease . To this
trio might be added climate change making the planet uninhabitable. Of the three existential threats the first is deduced from the
inferred cataclysmic effects of nuclear war. For the second there is geological evidence for the association of asteroid impacts with
massive extinction (Alvarez, 1987). As to an existential threat from microbes recent
decades have provided
unequivocal evidence for the ability of certain pathogens to cause the extinction of entire
species. Although infectious disease has traditionally not been associated with extinction this
view has changed by the finding that a single chytrid fungus was responsible for the extinction
of numerous amphibian species (Daszak et al., 1999; Mendelson et al., 2006). Previously, the view
that infectious diseases were not a cause of extinction was predicated on the notion that many
pathogens required their hosts and that some proportion of the host population was
naturally resistant. However, that calculation does not apply to microbes that are acquired
directly from the environment and have no need for a host, such as the majority of fungal
pathogens. For those types of host–microbe interactions it is possible for the pathogen to kill off every
last member of a species without harm to itself, since it would return to its natural habitat
upon killing its last host. Hence, from the viewpoint of existential threats environmental microbes
could potentially pose a much greater threat to humanity than the known pathogenic microbes, which
number somewhere near 1500 species (Cleaveland et al., 2001; Taylor et al., 2001), especially if some of these species acquired the
capacity for pathogenicity as a consequence of natural evolution or bioengineering.
CP
The Department of Health and Human Services should issue
regulations requiring the United Network for Organ Sharing to:
-Modify organ allocation procedures such that individuals who refuse
to donate after death are eligible to receive only those organs not well
matched to any potential recipient who agrees to donate,
-Create a national organ registry to record individuals’ organ sharing
preferences,
-Instruct medical professionals to defer to the registry rather than
next of kin when deciding whether to recover organs.
The United States should adopt a default assumption of consent for
deceased organ donation.
The counterplan’s mutually reinforcing reforms solve the organ
shortage
Christopher Tarver Robertson 7, JD from Harvard Law, PhD from Washington
University, Fall 2007, “FROM FREE RIDERS TO FAIRNESS: A COOPERATIVE SYSTEM FOR
ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION,” Jurimetrics Vol 48 No 1,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1416950
This article draws on many of these ideas but proposes an integrated system for procuring and
distributing cadaveric organs, based on the notion of a cooperative project. Under this paradigm, individuals would join
the organ system as both potential suppliers of cadaveric organs and potential recipients of
organs. This cooperative system should operate on an opt-out basis, so that all people would be
participants unless they chose to remove themselves. Those who decide to exclude
themselves from the cooperative system would only be eligible for surplus organs (that is, those that are
not well matched to those within the system who need organs). UNOS would create a national
registry to record people’s organ sharing preferences (not unlike the current national registry for those who need
organs), thereby replacing the fragmented state-by-state systems. Finally, medical professionals would
cease the practice of asking next of kin for the organs of their loved ones and instead always defer to
the registry. ¶ Because these policy reforms reinforce each other to create a robust and
coherent organ transplantation system, they forestall objections and problems that arise when
piecemeal proposals are considered individually . Altogether, this approach respects autonomy, resolves the
injustice of violating reciprocity, promotes the value of cooperation, and holds promise for minimizing the shortage .
Competes and avoids the net benefit---no statutory change is
necessary
Christopher Tarver Robertson 7, JD from Harvard Law, PhD from Washington University,
Fall 2007, “FROM FREE RIDERS TO FAIRNESS: A COOPERATIVE SYSTEM FOR ORGAN
TRANSPLANTATION,” Jurimetrics Vol 48 No 1,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1416950
Politically, this proposed organ system may seem daunting. Yet, an act of Congress
may not even be necessary. Current Federal law requires that UNOS “work actively to
increase the supply of donated organs.”174 The statute authorizes the establishment of
“membership criteria and medical criteria for allocating organs.”175 The provision for nonmedical
criteria would allow the screening of those who opt out.
Gift of Life
No social death---it’s only biological
Bernat 9 (James – Neurology Department, M.D., Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center,
“Contemporary controversies in the definition of death”, 2009, Progress in Brain Research
Volume 177, 2009, Pages 21–31, ScienceDirect)
The definition and criterion of death To better understand the need to analyze the definition and criterion of death
before physicians can design tests to determine death, let us consider the findings in a typical case of a brain-dead patient. A 44-year-old man suffered a
spontaneous massive subarachnoid hemorrhage from a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. His intracranial pressure exceeded systolic blood pressure for over
12 h. Neurological examination showed a complete absence of all clinical brain functions. He had apnea, absence of all brain stem reflexes, and
complete unresponsiveness to any stimuli. He had diabetes insipidus and profound systemic hypotension requiring vasopressor drugs to maintain his
blood pressure. Brain MRI showed marked cerebral edema with bilateral uncal herniation. Intracranial blood flow was entirely absent by intravenous
radionuclide angiography. While on the ventilator, his heart continued to beat, blood continued to perfuse visceral organs (but not his brain), his
kidneys made urine, and his gastrointestinal tract absorbed nutrients provided medically through a nasogastric tube. Was he alive or dead? He had
some findings traditionally present in dead patients: he was apneic, motionless, utterly unresponsive, had no pupillary reflexes to light, and had no
neuroendocrine homeostatic control mechanisms. But he also had some findings seen in living patients: he had heartbeat and visceral organ circulation
and functioning. But a physician's determination of whether he should be considered as alive or dead cannot be made until there is conceptual
agreement on what it means to be dead when technology successfully supports some of his vital subsystems. In the pretechnological era, when one
system vital to life stopped (heartbeat/circulation, respiration, or brain functions) the others stopped within minutes, so we did not have to address the
question of whether a person was dead when only brain functions stopped. Now, technology has created cases in which brain functions can cease
irreversibly but circulation and respiration can be mechanically supported. Now, we
must analyze the nature of death to
resolve the ambiguity of whether the “brain dead” person described in this case is truly dead. In the earliest description of brain-dead
patients, Mollaret and Goulon (1959) intuited that they were actually dead, claiming that they were in a state beyond coma (le coma dépassé). In the
classic Harvard Medical School Ad Hoc Committee report that publicized the concept and established the term “brain death” (1968), the authors
asserted that the patients were dead and therefore represented suitable organ donors. The first rigorous conceptual arguments showing why brain-dead
patients should be considered dead were not offered until a decade later (Korein, 1978; Capron and Kass, 1978) and were refined and expanded further
over the next several years ( Bernat, Culver, & Gert (1981) and Bernat, Culver, & Gert (1982); President's Commission, 1981). Jurisdictions within the
United States began to incorporate brain death determination into death statutes in 1970 (Curran, 1971), even before a firm philosophical foundation
justified doing so. The analyses of death that have gained the greatest acceptance by other scholars begin conceptually with the meaning of death and
progress to tangible and measurable criteria. Korein (1978) and Capron and Kass (1978) pointed out that agreement on a concept of death must precede
the development of tests to determine it. My colleagues, Charles Culver and Bernard Gert, and I further developed their idea of hierarchies of analysis
by fashioning a rigorous sequential analysis that incorporated the paradigm, definition, criterion, and tests of death (Bernat, Culver, & Gert (1981) and
Bernat, Culver, & Gert (1982)). I refined this analysis in subsequent articles that I summarize here (Bernat (1998), Bernat (2002) and Bernat (2006a)).
This analysis is frequently regarded as the standard defense that brain death represents human death, even among those who disagree with it
(Shewmon, 2009). The
first stage of analysis is to state and defend the preconditions of the argument
or “paradigm” of death: that set of assumptions that frame the analysis by clarifying the goal and
boundaries of the analysis. Agreement on these conditions is a prerequisite for further
discussion. Much of the disagreement by other scholars with this account results from failure to accept one or more of the seven conditions of the
paradigm. 1. The word “death” is a nontechnical word that we use correctly in ordinary
conversation to refer to the cessation of life of a human being. The goal in an analysis should not be
to redefine “death” by contriving a new or different meaning but to make explicit the implicit
meaning of death that we all accept in our usage of “death” that has been made ambiguous by advances in life-support technology. 2.
Death is a biological phenomenon. We all agree that life is a biological phenomenon; thus
its cessation also is fundamentally biological. Death is an immutable and objective biological fact
and is not a social contrivance. The focus of analyzing the definition and criterion of death is the ontology of death and not its
normative aspects. 3. We restrict the analysis to the death of higher vertebrate species for whom death is univocal. We refer to the same phenomenon of
“death” when we say our cousin died as we do when we say our dog died. 4. “Death”
should be applied directly and
categorically only to organisms. All living organisms must die and only living organisms can die.
When we say “a person died,” we refer to the death of the living organism that embodied the person, not that their organism continues to live but has
ceased to have the attributes of personhood. 5.
A higher organism can reside in only one of two states, alive or
dead: no organism can be in both states simultaneously or in neither. 6. Death is most accurately
represented as an event and not a process. If there are only two mutually exclusive underlying states of an organism (alive and
dead), the transition from one state to the other, at least in theory, must be sudden and discontinuous, because there is no intervening state. However,
because of technical limitations, the event of death may be determinable only in retrospect. Death is conceptualized most accurately as the event
Death is irreversible . If the event of death
were reversible it would not be death but rather incipient dying that was interrupted and
separating the true biological processes of dying and bodily disintegration. 7.
reversed. A definition of death must reflect the concept that something fundamental and essential about the organism has changed irreversibly.
We do not require the cessation of function of every cell, tissue, or organ to intuit death. The life and growth of some of a formerly living person's cells
in a cell culture dish does not imply that she remains alive although part of her undoubtedly does. Similarly, the functioning of a single organ outside
the body, such as a donated kidney that is being mechanically perfused and oxygenated awaiting transplantation, is not indicative of life of the
organism. Respiration and circulation that are supported technologically after the brain has been destroyed allow many organs to continue functioning
despite the loss of the life force driving them as well as the cessation of the overall interrelatedness and unity of the body. Such a preparation of
mechanically functioning but nonintegrated bodily subsystems constitutes life of part of the organism but does not represent life of the overall
organism any more than does the isolated functioning of its individual cells, tissue, or organs. An
adequate definition of death is
the cessation of the critical functions of the organism as a whole. The biologist Jacques Loeb
(1916) explained the concept of the organism as a whole. This concept does not refer to the whole organism (the sum of its parts) but to the integrated
functioning and interrelatedness of its parts that create the unity of the organism. Contemporary biophilosophers use the mechanism of emergent
functions to explain this concept more precisely (Mahner and Bunge, 1997). An emergent function is a property of a whole that is not possessed by any
of its component parts, and that cannot be reduced to one or more of its component parts. A function is called an emergent function because it emerges
spontaneously from the sum of its parts given the condition that the necessary parts (subsystems) are in place and functioning normally. The ineffable
phenomenon of human consciousness is the most exquisite example of an emergent function. The organism as a whole is the set of critical emergent
functions of the organism. The irreversible loss of the organism's critical emergent functions produces loss of the functioning of the organism as a
whole and represents the death of the organism. The organism's individual subsystems that remain functioning as a result of mechanical support do not
represent life of the organism because their interrelatedness, wholeness, and unity have ceased forever .
The cessation of the organism
as a whole is the most precise conceptualization of death in our technological era in which physicians are capable of
providing visceral organ support, transplantation, and advanced critical care. The criterion of death best satisfying this definition is the irreversible
cessation of all clinical brain functions. This criterion is known as the “whole-brain” criterion of death because it requires cessation of all clinically
measurable brain functions including those executed by the brain stem, diencephalon, thalamus, and cerebral hemispheres. The functions generated
and organized within these structures are necessary and sufficient for the critical emergent functions of the organism and thus are necessary and
sufficient for the organism as a whole. Death of the organism requires their irreversible cessation. In past analyses of
the unity and interrelatedness of the subsystems of the organism, my colleagues and I stressed that functions of the whole brain provided the
integration of the parts that created the whole. Subsequently, critics pointed out that the brain was not the only organ responsible for integration, and
that structures such as the spinal cord contributed significantly to the organism's integration of its parts into a whole (Shewmon, 2004). In their recent
report, the President's Council on Bioethics (2009) accepted the coherence of the formulation of whole brain death but concluded that Shewmon's
integration criticism was justified. As a result, they proposed an alternative explanation of why brain death satisfies the definition of death as the loss of
the organism as a whole. They concluded that the cessation of clinical brain functions caused “the inability of the organism to conduct its selfpreserving work.” This conceptualization emphasized the cessation of the organism's principal functions that made it an organism. Shewmon recently
analyzed the President's Council's alternative justification and found it wanting (Shewmon, 2009). Physicians have devised tests to show that the
criterion of death has been fulfilled. Two sets of tests for death reflect the two basic clinical circumstances: resuscitation or no resuscitation. If positivepressure ventilation is not used or planned, physicians can use the permanent cessation of circulation and respiration to declare death because the
brain will be destroyed by ischemic infarction within a sort time once its circulation has ceased. If positive-pressure ventilation is being used, physicians
must directly measure brain functions to assess death (“brain death”). Bedside clinical and laboratory tests to determine brain death have been
standardized and subjected to evidence-based analysis. Their description is clinically crucial but is beyond the scope of this article. These tests and
procedures have been critically reviewed (Wijdicks, 2001; Bernat, 2009). Alternative formulations of death Critics of either the whole-brain
criterion of death or of all brain-based concepts of death have offered alternative analyses. The earliest criticism accepted the theory
of brain death but argued that criterion of death should not be cessation of all clinical functions of the entire brain but only those of the cerebral
hemispheres. This argument holds that the cerebrum imparts the characteristics that distinguish humans from other species and the more primitive
brain structures that are shared with other species are not relevant. Robert Veatch claimed that death should be defined uniquely for human beings as
“the irreversible loss of that which is considered to be essentially significant to the nature of man.” He rejected the idea that death should be related to
an organism's loss of the capacity to integrate bodily function” because “man is, after all, something more than a sophisticated computer” (Veatch
(1975) and Veatch (1993)). A reasonable application of the higher brain formulation would define as dead patients who had irreversibly lost
consciousness such as those in a vegetative state. Several other scholars concurred with this concept that became known as the higher brain
formulation of death (Gervais, 1986). The higher brain formulation is an inadequate construct of death because it violates the first principle of the
paradigm by not attempting to make explicit the ordinary concept of death. Instead, it redefines death by declaring as dead brain-damaged patients
who are universally regarded as alive. A clear example of a patient satisfying the higher brain formulation would be a patient in an irreversible
vegetative state. Despite loss of awareness and many features of personhood, these patients are regarded as alive throughout the world (Bernat, 2006b).
Because many people would prefer to die if they were ever in such a state, the proper place of the higher brain formulation is in determining grounds to
permit cessation of life-sustaining therapy. Another critique of the criterion of whole-brain death is the British formulation of brain stem death. Under
the intellectual leadership of Christopher Pallis, the practice of brain stem death in the United Kingdom requires the cessation of only brain stem
functions (Pallis, 1995). In these cases, examiners cannot test cerebral hemispheric function and cannot use confirmatory tests showing cessation of
intracranial blood flow (Kosteljanetz et al., 1988). This circumstance creates the possibility of retained awareness despite other evidence of brain stem
failure (Ferbert et al., 1988). This serious flaw is uncompensated for by any unique benefit of the brain stem formulation. Yet, because most wholebrain functions can be shown to be absent when all brain stem functions are absent, the whole-brain and brain stem formulations usually yield the
same results. The sole exception is the case of a primary brain stem catastrophe in which the patient could be declared dead in the brain stem
formulation but not in the higher brain formulation. Several
scholars have argued that no single criterion of death
can be determined because death is not a discrete event but rather is an ineluctable process within
which it is arbitrary to stipulate the moment that death has occurred. Linda Emanuel (1995) made this argument and offered a scenario of a patient
gradually dying over many months from progressive multi-organ failure. Although
this claim appears plausible in some
cases of gradual dying, it errs by confusing the state of an underlying organism with our
technical ability to determine that state. Simply because we may not always be able to detect the
moment the organism changes from alive to dead, or we may be able to detect the transition only in retrospect — as in a
brain death determination — does not necessarily mean that the point of death does not exist or is arbitrary.
Death is not a process but is the event separating the process of dying from the process of bodily disintegration. Other scholars
argue that alive and dead are not always distinctly separable states and that some organisms (such as brain-dead patients) can reside in an in-between
state that is neither alive nor dead but has elements of both. Halevy and Brody (1993) made this argument employing the mathematical theory of fuzzy
sets. They claimed that physical or biological phenomena do not always divide themselves neatly into sets and their complements. They asserted that
the event of death is such an example and therefore it is impossible to identify a unitary criterion of death. However, this claim confuses our ability to
identify an organism's biological state and the nature of that underlying state. The paradigm made clear that life and death are the only two underlying
states of an organism and there can be no in-between state because the transition from one state to the other must be sudden and discontinuous. Using
the terminology of fuzzy set theory, it is most accurate biologically to view alive and dead as mutually exclusive (nonoverlapping) and jointly exhaustive
(no other) sets thereby permitting a unitary criterion of death. Some scholars claim that death is not an immutable biological event but is a social
contrivance that varies among societies and cultures (Miles, 1999). The
most libertarian among them go so far as to
claim that because death is a socially determined event, individuals in a free society should be permitted to stipulate
their own criterion of death based on their personal values (Veatch, 1999). These claims err in rejecting the paradigm
requirement that death (like life) is fundamentally a biological, not a social,
phenomenon . We all agree that customs surrounding death and dying have important and
cherished social, legal, religious, and cultural aspects, which vary among societies. But Veatch and Miles err by failing to
restrict their philosophical consideration to the ontogeny of death rather than to its normative issues . A few philosophers argue that
there are two kinds of death: death of the human organism and death of the person (McMahan, 1995;
Lizza, 2005). These scholars claim that they are not using “person” metaphorically and assert that the
death of a person is separate from that of the death of the human organism embodying the
person. This nonbiological dichotomy and dualism violates the paradigm requirement
that death is fundamentally a biological phenomenon that refers to the demise of the
human organism that embodied a person.
“No value to life” doesn’t outweigh – prioritize existence because
value is subjective and could improve in the future
Torbjörn Tännsjö 11, the Kristian Claëson Professor of Practical Philosophy at Stockholm
University, 2011, “Shalt Thou Sometimes Murder? On the Ethics of Killing,” online:
http://people.su.se/~jolso/HS-texter/shaltthou.pdf
I suppose it is correct to say that, if
Schopenhauer is right, if life is never worth living, then according to
utilitarianism we should all commit suicide and put an end to humanity. But this does not mean
that, each of us should commit suicide. I commented on this in chapter two when I presented the idea that
utilitarianism should be applied, not only to individual actions, but to collective actions as well.¶ It is a wellknown fact that people rarely commit suicide. Some even claim that no one who is mentally sound commits suicide. Could that be
taken as evidence for the claim that people live lives worth living? That would be rash. Many people are not utilitarians. They may
avoid suicide because they believe that it is morally wrong to kill oneself. It
is also a possibility that, even if people
lead lives not worth living , they believe they do . And even if some may believe that their lives, up
to now, have not been worth living, their future lives will be better . They may be mistaken about this. They
may hold false expectations about the future.¶ From the point of view of evolutionary biology, it is natural to assume that people
should rarely commit suicide. If we set old age to one side, it has poor survival value (of one’s genes) to kill oneself. So it should be
expected that it is difficult for ordinary people to kill themselves. But then theories about cognitive dissonance, known from
psychology, should warn us that we may come to believe that we live better lives than we do.¶ My
strong belief is that most
of us live lives worth living. However, I do believe that our lives are close to the point where they stop being worth living.
But then it is at least not very far-fetched to think that they may be worth not living, after all. My assessment may be too optimistic.¶
Let us just for
the sake of the argument assume that our lives are not worth living, and let us accept
that, if this is so, we should all kill ourselves. As I noted above, this does not answer the question
what we should do, each one of us . My conjecture is that we should not commit suicide. The explanation is
simple. If I kill myself, many people will suffer. Here is a rough explanation of how this will happen: ¶ ... suicide
“survivors” confront a complex array of feelings. Various forms of guilt are quite common, such as that arising from (a) the belief
that one contributed to the suicidal person's anguish, or (b) the failure to recognize that anguish, or (c) the inability to prevent the
suicidal act itself. Suicide also leads
to rage, loneliness, and awareness of vulnerability in those left
behind. Indeed, the sense that suicide is an essentially selfish act dominates many popular perceptions of suicide. ¶ The fact
that all our lives lack meaning , if they do, does not mean that others will follow my example. They
will go on with their lives and their false expectations — at least for a while devastated because of my suicide. But then I have an
obligation, for their sake, to go on with my life. It is highly likely that, by committing suicide, I create more suffering (in their lives)
than I avoid (in my life).
Shortages
Plan crushes donations---wrecks intrinsic motivation---hurts overall
supply
Sheila M. Rothman 6, Professor of Public Health in the Division of Sociomedical Sciences
the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, Assistant to the Deputy
Director of the Center for the Study of Society and Medicine at the Columbia College of
Physicians & Surgeons at Columbia University, and David J. Rothman, professor of Social
Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, President of the Institute
on Medicine as a Profession, 13 Feb 2006, “The Hidden Cost of Organ Sale,” American Journal
of Transplantation, 6(7); 1524-1529,
http://www.societyandmedicine.columbia.edu/organs_challenge.shtml
Advocates think it self-evident that market incentives will yield more organs for transplantation. ‘People
are more likely to do something if they are going to get paid for it’ (6). And sellers will not drive out donors. Whatever financial incentives exist, siblings and parents will
continue to donate to loved ones.¶ These expectations , however, may be disappointed . Since the 1970s, a group of economists
and social psychologists have been analyzing the tensions between ‘extrinsic
incentives’—financial compensation and monetary rewards, and ‘intrinsic incentives’—the
moral commitment to do one’s duty. They hypothesize that extrinsic incentives can ‘crowd out’ intrinsic
incentives, that the introduction of cash payments will weaken moral obligations . As Uri Gneezy, a
professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago School of Business, observes:
‘Extrinsic motivation might change the perception of the activity and destroy the intrinsic
motivation to perform it when no apparent reward apart from the activity itself is expected’ (7–12). Although the case for the
‘hidden costs of rewards’ is certainly not indisputable, it does suggest that a market in organs might reduce altruistic donation and overall supply .¶
Perhaps the most celebrated analysis of the tension between intrinsic and extrinsic incentives is Titmuss’ work in blood donation. His book, The Gift Relationship (1971), argued that the ‘commercialization of
blood represses the expression of altruism (and) erodes the sense of community’. Payment undermined the altruistic motivations of would-be blood donors. Titmuss supported his hypothesis by comparing blood
where the sale of blood was prohibited,
the percentage of the population who donated blood and the amount of blood donated
steadily increased . By comparison, in the United States, where the sale of blood was allowed, donations
declined . Because U.S. data were more fragmentary, Titmuss drew as best he could on a variety of sources, including surveys, municipal statistics and comments by medical experts and blood bank
donation in the United States and the United Kingdom. Analyzing data from England and Wales over the period 1946–1968,
Titmuss found that
officials. Nevertheless, he confidently concluded: The data, ‘when analyzed in microscopic fashion, blood bank by blood bank area by area, city by city, state by state’, revealed ‘a generally worsening situation’ (12).
Doesn’t get rid of the illegal market
Michael Hentrich 12, 19 Mar 2012, “Health Matters: Human Organ Donations, Sales, and
the Black Market,” http://arxiv-web3.library.cornell.edu/pdf/1203.4289v1
Contemporary sociologists including Michele Goodwin in Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts (2006)
have criticized the present system, pointing out that where there is a gift-relationship procurement system, a
thriving black market also exists. Goodwin also argues that poor African American communities are especially ill-served
by black markets. There are simply no guarantees that either regulation or marketization would
alleviate black market use rates and supply-side shortages. Consider that a black market prospers
even in Iran where the government regulates kidney pricing; black market use there (even for
kidneys) has not been eliminated or even substantially limited .
Regs would be ineffective and unenforceable
Gabriel Danovitch 8, M.D., Prof of Clinical Medicine and Nephrology at UCLA, and Francis
Delmonico, MD, Clinical Prof of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, “The prohibition of
kidney sales and organ markets should remain,” Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation
Volume 13(4), August 2008, p 386–394
It is true that much of the available data on exploitive commercialized donation come from countries where the process is unregulated [24••].
Surely, in the United States, regulation of the process would prevent such abuse. But what kind of
regulation would be required? Even if the destitute, who donate in developing countries, were somehow
excluded from the process ( and it is not clear how this could be legally achieved), the
donors would still be those who are in dire need of money and perhaps desperate to receive it. Consider, for
example, a potential paid donor requested to repeat a urinalysis because of the finding of proteinuria or
microscopic hematuria or borderline low renal function: a common request. Would the passage of the urine sample need to
be monitored to ensure that the donor is indeed the source of the sample? Whose responsibility will it
be to ensure that the factors listed above are not applicable to the donor and that the information
that is provided is accurate? After all, large amounts of money are at play and the major incentive for the
donor is financial? It has been suggested that abuse could be minimized by ensuring that paid donation will be regulated within geopolitical borders
Whose responsibility will it be to check on citizenship or naturalization
documents and establish identity theft?¶ These examples (it would not be difficult to come up with more) are quite
plausible, they belong to our ‘real’ world. The blithe contention [24••] that a regulated system could be tacked on to
our current United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) directed system is unrealistic. Physicians are not
trained to be police men or private detectives or agents of the US Immigration and Naturalization
Service and they should not take this role upon themselves. If kidney vending were to be permitted, it would seem that
[24••].
specially trained investigators would need to be included in the transplant team to ensure the accuracy of the paid donor's history and to ensure public
safety. A medical process would perforce become a legal one. The assertion with respect to a ‘regulated’ market in organ sales in the United States that
‘the procedural framework would be virtually identical to the system currently used to evaluate altruistic living donors’ is both misleading and
unrealistic [24••].
Impact Framing
Maximizing all lives is the only way to affirm equality
Cummiskey 90 – Professor of Philosophy, Bates David, Kantian Consequentialism, Ethics 100.3, p 601-2, p 606, jstor
We must not obscure the issue by characterizing this type of case as the sacrifice of individuals for some abstract "social entity." It
is not a
question of some persons having to bear the cost for some elusive "overall social good." Instead, the
question is whether some persons must bear the inescapable cost for the sake of other persons. Nozick, for example, argues that "to use a person in this
way does not sufficiently respect and take account of the fact that he is a separate person, that his is the only life he has."30 Why, however, is this not
equally true of all those that we do not save through our failure to act? By
emphasizing solely the one who must bear the
cost if we act, one fails to sufficiently respect and take account of the many other separate
persons, each with only one life, who will bear the cost of our inaction. In such a situation, what
would a conscientious Kantian agent, an agent motivated by the unconditional value of rational beings,
choose? We have a duty to promote the conditions necessary for the existence of rational beings, but
both choosing to act and choosing not to act will cost the life of a rational being. Since the basis of Kant's principle is "rational nature exists as an endin-itself' (GMM, p. 429), the reasonable solution to such a dilemma involves promoting, insofar as one can, the conditions necessary for rational beings.
If I sacrifice some for the sake of other rational beings, I do not use them arbitrarily and I do not
deny the unconditional value of rational beings. Persons may have "dignity, an unconditional and
incomparable value" that transcends any market value (GMM, p. 436), but, as rational beings, persons also have a fundamental
equality which dictates that some must sometimes give way for the sake of others. The
formula of the end-in-itself thus does not support the view that we may never force another to bear some cost in order to benefit others. If one focuses
on the equal value of all rational beings, then equal
consideration dictates that one sacrifice some to save many.
[continues] According to Kant, the objective end of moral action is the existence of rational beings. Respect for rational beings requires
that, in deciding what to do, one give appropriate practical considerat
ion to the unconditional value of rational beings and to the conditional value of happiness. Since agent-centered constraints
require a non-value-based rationale, the most natural interpretation of the demand that one give equal respect to all rational
beings lead to a consequentialist normative theory. We have seen that there is no sound Kantian reason for abandoning this
natural consequentialist interpretation. In particular, a consequentialist interpretation does not require sacrifices which a Kantian ought to consider
unreasonable, and it
does not involve doing evil so that good may come of it. It simply requires an
to the equal value and equal claims of all rational beings and a recognition that, in
the moral consideration of conduct, one's own subjective concerns do not have overriding importance.
uncompromising commitment
Ethical policymaking requires calculation of consequences
Gvosdev 5 – Rhodes scholar, PhD from St. Antony’s College, executive editor of The National Interest; Nikolas, The Value(s) of Realism,
SAIS Review 25.1, pmuse,
As the name implies, realists focus on promoting policies that are achievable and sustainable. In turn, the
morality of a foreign policy
judged by its results, not by the intentions of its framers. A foreign policymaker must weigh the
consequences of any course of action and assess the resources at hand to carry out the proposed task. As Lippmann
action is
warned, Without the controlling principle that the nation must maintain its objectives and its power in equilibrium, its purposes within its means and
its means equal to its purposes, its commitments related to its resources and its resources adequate to its commitments, it is impossible to think at all
about foreign affairs.8 Commenting on this maxim, Owen Harries, founding editor of The National Interest, noted, "This is a truth of which
Americans—more apt to focus on ends rather than means when it comes to dealing with the rest of the world—need always to be reminded."9 In fact,
Morgenthau noted that "there can be no political morality without prudence."10 This virtue of prudence—which Morgenthau identified as the
cornerstone of realism—should not be confused with expediency. Rather, it takes as its starting point that it
commitments than to make "empty" promises, and to
is more moral to fulfill one's
seek solutions that minimize harm and produce sustainable
results. Morgenthau concluded: [End Page 18] Political realism does not require, nor does it condone, indifference to political ideals and moral
principles, but it requires indeed a sharp distinction between the desirable and the possible, between what is desirable everywhere and at all times and
what is possible under the concrete circumstances of time and place.11 This is why, prior to the outbreak of fighting in the
former Yugoslavia, U.S. and European realists urged that Bosnia be decentralized and partitioned into ethnically based cantons as a way to head off a
destructive civil war. Realists felt this would be the best course of action, especially after the country's first free and fair elections had brought
nationalist candidates to power at the expense of those calling for inter-ethnic cooperation. They had concluded—correctly, as it turned out—that the
United States and Western Europe would be unwilling to invest the blood and treasure that would be required to craft a unitary Bosnian state and give
it the wherewithal to function. Indeed, at a diplomatic conference in Lisbon in March 1992, the various factions in Bosnia had, reluctantly, endorsed the
broad outlines of such a settlement. For the purveyors of moralpolitik, this was unacceptable. After all, for this plan to work, populations on the "wrong
side" of the line would have to be transferred and resettled. Such a plan struck directly at the heart of the concept of multi-ethnicity—that different
ethnic and religious groups could find a common political identity and work in common institutions. When the United States signaled it would not
accept such a settlement, the fragile consensus collapsed. The United States, of course, cannot be held responsible for the war; this lies squarely on the
shoulders of Bosnia's political leaders. Yet Washington fell victim to what Jonathan Clarke called "faux Wilsonianism," the
belief that "highmatter more than rational calculation" in formulating effective policy, which led U.S.
policymakers to dispense with the equation of "balancing commitments and resources."12 Indeed, as he notes, the
Clinton administration had criticized peace plans calling for decentralized partition in Bosnia "with lofty
rhetoric without proposing a practical alternative." The subsequent war led to the deaths of tens of
thousands and left more than a million people homeless. After three years of war, the Dayton Accords—hailed as a triumph of American
flown words
diplomacy—created a complicated arrangement by which the federal union of two ethnic units, the Muslim-Croat Federation, was itself federated to a
Bosnian Serb republic. Today, Bosnia requires thousands of foreign troops to patrol its internal borders and billions of dollars in foreign aid to keep its
government and economy functioning. Was the aim of U.S. policymakers, academics and journalists—creating a multi-ethnic democracy in Bosnia—not
worth pursuing? No, not at all, and this is not what the argument suggests. But aspirations were not matched with capabilities. As
a result of
holding out for the "most moral" outcome and encouraging the Muslim-led government in Sarajevo to pursue maximalist aims
rather than finding a workable compromise that could have avoided bloodshed and produced more stable
conditions, the peoples of Bosnia suffered greatly. In the end, the final settlement was very close [End Page 19] to
the one that realists had initially proposed—and the one that had also been roundly condemned on moral grounds.
Nuclear war is real and outweighs structural violence---one-shot
impacts are still important
Ken Boulding 78 is professor of economics and director, Center for Research on Conflict Resolution, University of Michigan, “Future Directions in Conflict and
Peace Studies,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Jun., 1978), pp. 342-354
Galtung is very legitimately interested in problems of world poverty and the failure of
development of the really poor. He tried to amalga- mate this interest with the peace research
interest in the more narrow sense. Unfortunately, he did this by downgrading the study of
inter- national peace, labeling it "negative peace" (it should really have been labeled "negative war") and then
developing the concept of "structural violence," which initially meant all those social structures and histories which produced an
expectation of life less than that of the richest and longest-lived societies. He argued by analogy that if people died before the age, say, of 70 from avoidable causes,
Unfortunately, the concept of
structural violence was broadened, in the word of one slightly unfriendly critic, to include anything that Galtung
did not like. Another factor in this situation was the feeling, certainly in the 1960s and early 1970s, that nuclear
deterrence was actually succeeding as deterrence and that the problem of nuclear war had
receded into the background. This it seems to me is a most danger- ous illusion and diverted
conflict and peace research for ten years or more away from problems of disarmament and stable
peace toward a grand, vague study of world developments, for which most of the
peace researchers are not particularly well qualified. To my mind, at least, the quality of the research has suffered severely
that this was a death in "war"' which could only be remedied by something called "positive peace."
as a result.' The complex nature of the split within the peace research community is reflected in two international peace research organizations. The official one, the
International Peace Research Association (IPRA), tends to be dominated by Europeans somewhat to the political left, is rather, hostile to the United States and to the
multinational cor- porations, sympathetic to the New International Economic Order and thinks of itself as being interested in justice rather than in peace. The Peace
Science Society (International), which used to be called the Peace Research Society (International), is mainly the creation of Walter Isard of the University of
Pennsylvania. It conducts meetings all around the world and represents a more peace-oriented, quantitative, science- based enterprise, without much interest in
ideology. COPRED, while officially the North American representative of IPRA, has very little active connection with it and contains within itself the same ideological
split which, divides the peace research community in general. It has, however, been able to hold together and at least promote a certain amount of interaction between
the two points of view. Again representing the "scientific" rather than the "ideological" point of view, we have SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute, very generously (by the usual peace research stand- ards) financed by the Swedish government, which has performed an enormously useful service in the
collection and publishing of data on such things as the war industry, technological developments, arma- ments, and the arms trade. The Institute is very largely the
creation of Alva Myrdal. In spite of the remarkable work which it has done, how- ever, her last book on disarmament (1976) is almost a cry of despair over the folly
and hypocrisy of international policies, the overwhelming power of the military, and the inability of mere information, however good, go change the course of events
as we head toward ultimate ca- tastrophe. I do not wholly share her pessimism, but it is hard not to be a little disappointed with the results of this first generation of
the peace research movement. Myrdal called attention very dramatically to the appalling danger in which Europe stands, as the major battleground between Europe,
the United States, and the Soviet Union if war ever should break out. It may perhaps be a subconscious recognition-and psychological denial-of the sword of
Damocles hanging over Europe that has made the European peace research movement retreat from the realities of the international system into what I must unkindly
describe as fantasies of justice. But the American peace research community, likewise, has retreated into a somewhat niggling scientism, with sophisticated methodologies and not very many new ideas. I must confess that when I first became involved with the peace research enterprise 25 years ago I had hopes that it might
produce some- thing like the Keynesian revolution in economics, which was the result of some rather simple ideas that had never really been thought out clearly
before (though they had been anticipated by Malthus and others), coupled with a substantial improvement in the information system with the development of
national income statistics which rein- forced this new theoretical framework. As a result, we have had in a single generation a very massive change in what might be
called the "conventional wisdom" of economic policy, and even though this conventional wisdom is not wholly wise, there is a world of difference between Herbert
Hoover and his total failure to deal with the Great Depression, simply because of everybody's ignorance, and the moder- ately skillful handling of the depression
which followed the change in oil prices in 1-974, which, compared with the period 1929 to 1932, was little more than a bad cold compared with a galloping
In the international system, however, there has been only glacial change in the
conventional wisdom. There has been some improvement. Kissinger was an improvement on John Foster Dulles. We
pneumonia.
have had the beginnings of detente, and at least the possibility on the horizon of stable peace between the United States and the Soviet Union, indeed in the whole
the tropics still remain uneasy and beset with arms races, wars, and
revolutions which we cannot really afford. Nor can we pretend that peace around the temper- ate zone is
stable enough so that we do not have to worry about it. The qualitative arms race goes on
and could easily take us over the cliff . The record of peace research in the last generation, therefore, is one of very
partial success. It has created a discipline and that is something of long-run consequence, most certainly for the good. It has made very little dent
on the conventional wisdom of the policy makers anywhere in the world. It has not been
able to prevent an arms race, any more, I suppose we might say, than the Keynesian economics has been able to prevent inflation. But whereas
inflation is an inconvenience, the arms race may well be another catastrophe . Where, then, do we go from here? Can
we see new horizons for peace and conflict research to get it out of the doldrums in which
it has been now for almost ten years? The challenge is surely great enough. It still remains true that war, the
breakdown of Galtung's "negative peace," remains the greatest clear and present danger
to the human race, a danger to human survival far greater than poverty, or
injustice, or oppression, desirable and necessary as it is to eliminate these things. Up to
temperate zone-even though
the present generation, war has been a cost and an inconven- ience to the human race, but it has rarely been fatal to the process of evolutionary development as a
Even in the twenti- eth century, with its
two world wars and innumerable smaller ones, it has probably not acounted for more than
5% of deaths, though of course a larger proportion of premature deaths. Now, however,
ad- vancing technology is creating a situation where in the first place we are developing a
single world system that does not have the redundancy of the many isolated systems of the
past and in which therefore if any- thing goes wrong everything goes wrong. The Mayan civilization
could collapse in 900 A.D., and collapse almost irretrievably without Europe or China even being aware of the fact. When we had a number of
iso- lated systems, the catastrophe in one was ultimately recoverable by migration from
the surviving systems. The one-world system, therefore, which science, transportation, and communication are rapidly giving us,
is inherently more precarious than the many-world system of the past. It is all the more
important, therefore, to make it internally robust and capable only of recoverable
catastrophes. The necessity for stable peace, therefore, increases with every improvement
in technology, either of war or of peacex
whole. It has probably not absorbed more than 5% of human time, effort, and resources.
2NC
**K
Overview --- 2NC
Movements against neolib now---only way to stop extinction from
ecological collapse, authoritarianism, and resource conflict
Vandana Shiva 12, founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology,
Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Western Ontario, chairs the Commission on the
Future of Food set up by the Region of Tuscany in Italy and is a member of the Scientific
Committee which advises President Zapatero of Spain, March 1, 2012, “Imposed Austerity vs
Chosen Simplicity: Who Will Pay For Which Adjustments?,” online:
http://www.ethicalmarkets.com/2012/03/01/imposed-austerity-vs-chosen-simplicity-whowill-pay-for-which-adjustments/
The dominant economic model based on limitless growth on a limited planet is leading to an overshoot of
the human use of the earth’s resources. This is leading to an ecological catastrophe . It is also
leading to intense and violent resource grab of the remaining resources of the earth by the rich
from the poor. The resource grab is an adjustment by the rich and powerful to a shrinking resource base – land, biodiversity, water –
without adjusting the old resource intensive, limitless growth paradigm to the new reality. Its only
outcome can be ecological scarcity for the poor in the short term, with deepening poverty and deprivation. In the long run it means the
extinction of our species , as climate catastrophe and extinction of other species
makes the planet un-inhabitable for human societies. Failure to make an ecological adjustment to
planetary limits and ecological justice is a threat to human survival . The Green Economy being pushed at
Rio +20 could well become the biggest resource grabs in human history with corporations appropriating the planet’s green wealth, the biodiversity, to
become the green oil to make bio-fuel, energy plastics, chemicals – everything that the petrochemical era based on fossil fuels gave us. Movements
worldwide have started to say “No to the Green Economy of the 1%”.
But an ecological adjustment is possible, and is happening . This ecological adjustment involves seeing
ourselves as a part of the fragile ecological web, not outside and above it, immune from the
ecological consequences of our actions. Ecological adjustment also implies that we see ourselves as members of the earth
community, sharing the earth’s resources equitably with all species and within the human community. Ecological adjustment requires
an end to resource grab, and the privatization of our land, bio diversity and seeds, water and atmosphere. Ecological adjustment is based
on the recovery of the commons and the creation of Earth Democracy.
The dominant economic model based on resource monopolies and the rule of an oligarchy is not just in
conflict with ecological limits of the planet . It is in conflict with the principles of
democracy, and governance by the people , of the people, for the people. The adjustment from the
oligarchy is to further strangle democracy and crush civil liberties and people’s freedom .
Bharti Mittal’s statement that politics should not interfere with the economy reflects the mindset of the oligarchy that democracy can be done away
with. This anti-democratic adjustment includes laws like homeland security in U.S., and multiple security laws in India.
The calls for a democratic adjustment from below are witnessed worldwide in the rise of non-violent protests, from the Arab spring
to the American autumn of “Occupy” and the Russian winter challenging the hijack of elections and electoral democracy.
And these movements
for democratic adjustment are also rising everywhere in response to
the “austerity” programmes imposed by IMF, World Bank and financial institutions which created the financial
crisis. The Third World had its structural Adjustment and Forced Austerity, through the 1980s and 1990s, leading to IMF riots.
India’s structural adjustment of 1991 has given us the agrarian crisis with quarter million farmer suicides and food crisis pushing
every 4th Indian to hunger and every 2nd Indian child to severe malnutrition; people are paying with their very lives for adjustment
imposed by the World Bank/IMF. The trade liberalization reforms dismantled our food security system, based on universal PDS. It
opened up the seed sector to seed MNCs. And now an attempt is being made through the Food Security Act to make our public
feeding programmes a market for food MNCs. The forced austerity continues through imposition of so called reforms, such as
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in retail, which would rob 50 million of their livelihoods in retail and millions more by changing the
production system. Europe started having its forced austerity in 2010. And everywhere there are anti-austerity protests from U.K., to
Italy, Greece, Spain, Ireland, Iceland, and Portugal. The banks which have created the crisis want society to adjust by destroying jobs
and livelihoods, pensions and social security, public services and the commons. The
people want financial systems to
adjust to the limits set by nature, social justice and democracy. And the precariousness of the living
conditions of the 99% has created a new class which Guy Standing calls the “Precariate”. If the Industrial Revolution gave us the
industrial working class, the proletariat, globalization and the “free market” which is destroying the livelihoods of peasants in
India and China through land grabs, or the chances of economic security for the young in what were the rich industrialized
countries, has created a global class of the precarious. As Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich have written in
“The making of the American 99%”, this new class of the dispossessed and excluded include “middle class professional, factory
workers, truck drivers, and nurses as well as the much poorer people who clean the houses, manicure the fingernails, and maintain
the lawn of the affluent”.
Forced austerity based on the old paradigm allows the 1% super rich, the oligarchs, to grab the planets
resources while pushing out the 99% from access to resources, livelihoods, jobs and any form of
freedom, democracy and economic security. It is often said that with increasing growth, India and China are replicating the
resource intensive and wasteful lifestyles of the Western countries. The reality is that while a small 3 to 4% of India is joining the mad race for
consuming the earth with more and more automobiles and air conditioners, the large majority of India is being pushed into “de-consumption” – losing
their entitlements to basic needs of food and water because of resource and land grab, market grab, and destruction of livelihoods. The hunger and
malnutrition crisis in India is an example of the “de-consumption” forced on the poor by the rich, through the imposed austerity built into the trade
liberalization and “economic reform” policies.
There is another paradigm emerging which is shared by Gandhi and the new movements of the 99%, the
paradigm of voluntary simplicity of reducing one ecological foot print while increasing human well being
for all. Instead of forced austerity that helps the rich become super rich, the powerful
become totalitarian, chosen simplicity enables us all to adjust ecologically, to reduce over
consumption of the planets resources, it allows us to adjust socially to enhance democracy and it
creates a path for economic adjustment based on justice and equity.
Forced austerity makes the poor and working families pay for the excesses of limitless greed and
accumulation by the super rich. Chosen simplicity stops these excesses and allow us to flower into an
Earth Democracy where the rights and freedoms of all species and all people are protected and respected.
2NC FW
technocratic roleplaying cements neoliberal ideology---policy analysis
naturalizes the SQ and obliterates individual agency---vi
Michael Gunder 9 and Jean Hillier * Senior planning lecturer in the School of Architecture
and Planning at the University of Auckland, AND **Professor of Town and Country Planning at
School of Architecture, Newcastle University, Planning in Ten Words or Less: A Lacanian
Entanglement with Spatial Planning, pgs. 111-112
The hegemonic network, or bloc, initially shapes the debates and draws on appropriate policies of desired
success, such as the needs of bohemians, knowledge clusters, or talented knowledge workers, as to
what constitutes their desired enjoyment (cobblestones, chrome and cappuccinos at sidewalk cafes) and what is
therefore lacking in local competitiveness. In turn, this defines what is blighted and dysfunctional and in
need of economic, spatial planning, or other, remedy. Such an argument is predicated on a logic, or more
accurately a rhetoric, that a lack of a particular defined type of enjoyment, or
competitiveness (for surely they are one and the same) is inherently unhealthy for the aggregate
social body. Lack and its resolution are generally presented as technical, rather than political issues. Consequently,
technocrats in partnership with their 'dominant stakeholders' can ensure the
impression of rationally seeking to produce happiness for the many, whilst, of course,
achieving their stakeholders' specific interests (Gunder and Hillier 2007a, 469). The current
'post-democratic' milieu facilitates the above through avoidance of critical policy
debate challenging favoured orthodox positions and policy approaches. Consideration of
policy deficiencies, or alternative 'solutions', are eradicated from political debate so that while'
token institutions of liberal democracy are retained, conflicting positions and arguments
are negated (Stavrakakis 2003, 59). Consequently, 'the safe names in the field who feed the policy orthodoxy are repeatedly
used, or their work drawn upon, by different stakeholders, while more critical voices are silenced by their
inability to shape policy debates' (Boland 2007, 1032). The economic development or spatial
planning policy analyst thus continues to partition reality ideologically by deploying
only the orthodox 'successful' or 'best practice' economic development or spatial planning
responses . This further maintains the dominant, or hegemonic, status quo while
providing 'a cover and shield against critical thought by acting in the manner of a
"buffer" isolating the political field from any research that is independent and radical in
its conception as in its implications for public policy' (Wacquant 2004, 99). At the same time, adoption of the
hegemonic orthodoxy tends to generate similar policy responses for every
competing local area or city-region, largely resulting in a zero-sum game (Blair and
Kumar 1997). In the race for global competitiveness, city-region authorities continue to prioritise economic development and
supporting spatial planning policies. They maintain the dominant status quo by appearing to increase the happiness of material well
being for all. The state, its local government and its governance structures, must be seen to be doing something to justify their
existence. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, public sector actions, which give the appearance of doing something to
improve the local economy and the city-region's amenity, actually address the (primal) desire of most people in society for at least
the illusion of a safe and assured happy future of security and prosperity. Even if practitioners can only deliver this as a fantasyscenario by providing the potential of a limited material increase in happiness for some, even when this may not really be what is
actually wanted, this type of response is more acceptable to politicians and the voting public than is the truth that to sate the wants
and desires of everyone is an impossibility (Gunder 2003a, 2003b).
K is a prior question --- key to policy relevance, epistemology comes
first, and the perm doesn’t solve
Nick Smith 4, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of New Hampshire, PhD in
Philosophy from Vanderbilt, JD from SUNY Buffalo, “When Selling your Soul Isn’t Enough,”
Social Theory and Practice, Vol. 30, No. 4 (October 20),
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~nicks/pdf/Selling_Your_Soul.pdf
But if this issue of distributive justice would be determinative, by avoiding the questions Wilkinson begs the primary premise running throughout the
book. If nations have created the impoverished conditions that make selling organs a desirable option for a desperate person, then by his own ac-count
they would be required to remedy that harm with nothing in return. Beyond this, one might argue that wealthy nations have an affirmative duty to
alleviate poverty in poor nations even if they are not responsible for it. Wilkinson believes this cannot be correct because "if the rich nations have a duty
to give resources to poor nations, then any time that the rich nations insist on trading rather than donating, they will be practicing omis-sive coercion—
threatening to withhold money that they should be giving anyway ..." If this is right, he claims, there is no reason to stop at organs. He finds this
objection decisive: "Either it doesn't work at all, or it works but 'proves too much' and gives us no reason to single out organ sale for condemnation
and/or prohibition" (129). In other words, because this con-fiicts with capitalist intuitions it must be contradictory. The same logic is at work in the
above worries regarding the use of money to induce people to do risky work:
worked, ergo it is just.
this is how capitalism has always
Yet we must realize that there is a relevant and obvious difference between a duty to provide life-saving goods
rather than luxury goods. More funda-mentally, in
the case of selling human organs we see the logical conclusion
of the free market and we look squarely upon Marx's description of the transformation of
humans into things . We have been commodities for a long time, but when the debate is
framed in terms of organ sale we are forced to confront that fact. It does not sit well, but the
idea that our economic practices are at root ethically bankrupt is even more uncomfortable.
While I am sympathetic to his refusal to address such questions of distribu-tive justice due to constraints of the book, Wilkinson seems reluctant to pull
on the thread that will unravel his arguments by their own standards. If organ markets operate in a context of omissive coercion or if wealthy nations or
individuals have a duty to alleviate poverty, then even his built-for-commerce ethical concepts must find such practices wrong. ¶ Hoping
to
diffuse these challenges without engaging them directly, Wilkinson suggests that if the worry is
that the wealthy will take advantage of the poor then we need not ban organ sales but should
instead regulate them. He first considers criminalizing the purchase of kidneys from im-poverished people, treating them as a vulnerable
group that requires the sort of protections we provide for children and the cognitively disabled. Such a policy could lead to situations in which an
impoverished person could not sell her kidney for $2000 to pay for life-saving treatment for a family member but a wealthy person could trade hers for
a new luxury automobile. Wilkinson prefers enforcing a "generous" minimum fee that would "help to alleviate poverty and save lives, while at the same
time all but eliminating exploitative kidney purchases" (133). Thus, selling a kid-ney on eBay would be morally justifiable so long as we enforce a sufficient minimum bid.¶ Such
a band-aid , however, only treats the symptoms of the underlying
disease causing people to auction off chunks of their bodies. The issue is not whether people
should be allowed to sell their innards or at what price. We should instead be asking the
broader social and economic questions regarding why, for so very many people, trading
their organs for subsistence is in fact their best option. Wilkinson's analyses begin with the
observation that poor, desperate people exist, and he never questions the mo-rality of such
a condition. To borrow Margaret Radin's analogy, it is as if we are debating how to stop people with guns to
their head from executing the orders of their abductors rather than determining how to free
them from such a predicament.'" Permitting organ sales validates and perpetuates the conditions
causing the sale . Wilkinson also appears to be so de-tached from questions of economic
justice that he never considers how purchased organs would be distributed. We can infer that they
would go to the highest bidders ." Under Wilkinson's light regulations, a wealthy and unreformed alcoholic,
or perhaps a gourmand with a taste for human offal, could buy as many kidneys as she wishes
while others would die as they are outbid. If personal wealth determines who lives
and dies in this literal sense, just as it determines who fights in our wars, how seriously
can we take conceptions of human equality?12¶ In the analysis of paid surrogacy in the "Babies for Sale" chapter, Wil-kinson
attempts to distinguish his arguments here from Judge Posner's now infamous advocacy for an open market in infants.'^ Wilkinson doesnot explain
why he is so eager to make this distinction, but he claims thatone pays a surrogate only for the service of carrying the child to term andnot for the child
herself. Although the surrogate must hand over the childwhen she is bom as a condition of the contract, Wilkinson claims that thisis more like
returning the child after a period of temporary custody in thesame way that a teacher returns children to parents at the end of the schoolday or a
mechanic returns a car to its owner after repairing it. This fails,however, to appreciate that the "service" the surrogate provides transformsthe thing at
issue from an object to a subject, in some cases from a syringefilled with the father's sperm to a human baby. Unless Wilkinson takes theposition that
the sperm and the newborn have the same moral status, hemust admit that surrogacy is less like temporary custody and more like salein that the
surrogate is paid to create, surrender, and confer rights to a childfor money. He also claims that surrogate relationships are unlike baby sell-ing because
we do not sell newboms on the open market to the highestbidder. But, given Wilkinson's arguments, it would seem that we should.''*¶ His support for
paid surrogacy mirrors his claims for organ sale. Con-trary to assertions that surrogacy reduces women to "fetal containers," onecan still treat a woman
as an end-in-herself while paying her to carry achild. Paying a woman to do so actually increases her value by his logic. Ifwe are concerned that women
will suffer disparity of value exploitation,we should guarantee high minimum payments. And while surrogacy mayencourage women to take risks that
they would not without economic in-centive, "the whole economy is based on people using money to influenceeach other" and he again dismisses such
an argument as "proving toomuch" (172). Because he believes that poverty does not preclude the abil-ity to consent and that we can take measures to
ensure that women makeinformed choices about the physical and emotional dangers of surrogacy,he finds no material difference between it and other
market labor. Wilkin-son thus avoids the same central questions of distributive justice here as inhis discussion of kidney sales. Regardless of whether a
parent receivespayment for surrogacy, sells a child outright on a baby market, or sacri-fices one child into sexual slavery in order to feed her sisters, the
primaryproblem is not the markets for these goods and services but rather the so-cial and economic conditions that force such choices between death
andbondage. And while he notes that some critics find surrogacy wrong re-gardless of payment, others resist because it further commodifies
women'sbodies within an already objectifying culture. Beneath such worries lies acausal claim that surrogacy will lead not only to the increased
commodifi-cation of women—recall that for Wilkinson commodification is a neutralterm—but that it will result in an increase in wrongful
commodification bycausing women to be exploited or treated as mere means more frequently.He rightly notes that these are empirical claims, but finds
them foundedupon "speculative sociological premises." Equally speculative, however, ishis presumption that allowing paid surrogacy does not reinforce
the typi-cally brutal conditions causing the sale. Just as Wilkinson opens the bookreminding us that body commodification is nothing new because
prostitu-tion is "the oldest profession," he casts surrogacy as if it were a fullyautonomous vocation in the way others justify prostitution as a
legitimateeconomic practice while understanding the very idea of "whoring" as syn-onymous with degradation.'^¶ In the final chapter, "Patenting Life,"
Wilkinson first rebuts the claimthat human DNA patenting facilitates biomedical progress by conferringproprietary rights to individuals, which in turn
provides the investmentincentives driving research. For Wilkinson this is a myth, because it actu-ally suppresses academic freedom, discourages
researchers from sharinginformation, and most importantly creates a "tragedy of the anti-commons," wherein tiny bits of genetic information are
patented and at-tempts to combine them into useful sequences are frustrated by the mas-sive transaction costs of securing rights to each piece. To solve
this prob-lem he proposes "a 'moderate' policy under which patents that seek tolimit access to basic information and research tools are prohibited,
whilethose on downstream inventions with immediate practical applications arepermitted" (220). Worries of "biopiracy" often accompany genetic
patent-ing, for example when profiteers extract genetic information from remotecommunities, patent it, and then do not return any of the income
generatedto the community. The problem here is not that genetic information is sold,but that the proceeds are not distributed fairly. Regulation can
remedy this.He also defends genetic patenting against two deontological objections,first noting that because DNA is "just material" and not essential to
ourself-governance it is like a kidney in that it may be fully instnimentalizedwithout violating the dignity of its "source." Yet as science chips away atall
forms of human intentionality and we increasingly appear to be causallydetermined all the way down, what will remain inviolable if not our code? This
relates to the general problem that notions
of alienability and in-alienability were founded on what is
respectively external and internal to the subject. As personhood becomes understood as a
dialectical process between identity and culture rather than a metaphysical fixture, the line
between subject and object loses its force as a barrier between the market and the person and
commodification moves in.'^¶ Wilkinson also resists accusations that DNA patenting amounts to aform of slavery: "the latter involves
having a legal right to disregard orviolate another person's autonomy whereas the former merely involveshaving partial rights over the production of
human genetic material" (219).He concedes that if someone else holds the patent to enough of your code,you would not be able to "reproduce" or
"market" without the requisitepermissions from the patent holder (209). In an age in which one's geneticinformation will become increasingly subject
to manipulation and scrutiny,these would surely be substantial rights to lose.¶
AT: Case Turns K
Legalized organ trade extends neoliberal marketization into all
aspects of life---the impact is continuing inequality and exploitation of
the environment
Poonam Motwani 13, Institute of Information Technology, & Anand Swaroop Das, National
Law University Odisha, Neo-Liberal Globalization and the Commoditization of Life: A
Comprehensive Perspective, http://www.jpg.net.in/demo/JPG%20%20December%202013.pdf#page=20
Neoliberal theorem of globalization in the era of rampant capitalization has brought about the
dehumanized practice of trafficking of life and the merchandizing of the organs, which effectuates itself as one of the most
pressing concerns of this era. The all- encompassing effect of the phenomena of globalization has led to the conversion of
every object into commodity with a price for everything and value of nothing . Thus, a pertinent question
that needs to be asked is what can be the possible repercussions of the “Life for sale” model that governs our world today? This Paper seeks to critically analyze how this practice
strikes a blow at the Right to life of the human-kind. Firstly, this paper will supply an insight into the concept of commoditization
The
in a Globalized era and the underlying reasons for its unabated continuance. Further, the authors will shed light on the current scenario, purporting its ramifications on various classes of society with the paradigm
of laws being the vantage point of analysis. In conclusion, with the tool of case studies, the paper seeks to sensitize the reader about the undignified living of those suffering from the problem and the possible
Human body and its parts have a long history of being victimized by the scourge of
commoditization, within a multitude of cultural settings. In the neoliberal age of the celebration of markets, the pervasive expansion of markets
and the role of commodification have come under intense scrutiny1. In simple terms, commoditization of human beings signifies assignment of
an economic value to a human being to such an extent that they become market commodities
and can be bought and sold for profit. The medicalization of life, the fragmentation of the body,
and the subjectification of colonized subjects all potentially dehumanize individuals
and categories of persons in the name of profit 2. The most prominent examples of
commoditization in the globalized era are human trafficking and organ trade. The flagitious practice of selling body and
mitigation strategies. ¶ Introduction ¶
its parts have increased manifold in the last half of the 21st century. The all-encompassing effect of the phenomena of globalization has led to the conversion of every object into commodity with a price for
everything and value of nothing. ¶ Commoditization in Neo-Liberal Era Concept and Meaning: Commodification is used to describe the process by which something which does not have an economic value is
assigned a value and hence how market values can replace other social values3. The practice of using body or body parts as commodities, derive their morality from the views found in Libertarian political thought
which held that body and its parts may be brought, rented and sold. This philosophy traces its conceptual ancestry to the seventeenth century philosopher John Locke, who argued that each individual's body
belongs to that individual, and that individuals can acquire other properties by appropriating them from nature and mixing their labour with those things4. According to Andrews, the principle of autonomy
provides a basis for treating the body as property5. With the coming up of globalization, commodification and merchandize of humans and their body parts became wanton and also prosperous. Globalization
facilitated the heinous practices of organ trade, human trafficking, sex trade etc. with the development of medical technology and progress of market economy. As medicines for transplantation continue to
advance, more tissues, organs are becoming resources for medical purposes and their commercial value as commodities also increases. Even biotechnology contributes to the woes of commodification of human
the commodification of the human body is an extension of the
commodification of the natural environment such as land and natural resources, of
animals and plants, and of human labor (a part of the "functions" of the human body)6 . ¶ Human Trafficking and Organ Trade: Human trafficking involves acts of
bodies. In fact,
recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a person through the use of threat, abduction, fraud, deception, force or other coercive means for the purpose of exploitation7 . Although it is difficult
to measure the scope of trafficking of human bodies (THB) due to its intentionally hidden nature, the U.S. Department of State, a government organ that annually reports on transnational THB trends, estimates
that up to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year8. The innumerable definitions of human trafficking vary in length and concreteness but their core aspects remain constant i.e.
coercion, deception and exploitation. People engaged in human trafficking do not always end up in the sex industry. Many victims are also exploited for the purpose of domestic work, marriage, industrial and
agricultural work, and trade in human organs9. More subtle forms of body trafficking drive a transnational trade in adoptable children10. ¶
Organ sale—for example, allowing or encouraging
consenting adults to become living kidney donors in return for money—has been proposed as a possible solution to the seemingly chronic shortage of organs for transplantation11. The menace of organ trade
has divided the world population into two groups: organ donors and organ receivers . In the last three decades,
organ transplantation has increased manifold as a common procedure in hospitals and clinics around the world. This rise in organ transplantation has led to the global shortage of the number of viable organs in
The capitalistic society of today taking full advantage of the situation, resorts to organ trade
to achieve this shortage. The confluence in the flows of immigrant workers and itinerant kidney
sellers who fall prey to sophisticated but unscrupulous transnational organ brokers is a subtext
in the recent history of globalization 12. In a market context, paying for a kidney “donation” is
viewed as a potential “win-win” situation that can benefit both parties 13. ¶ Commoditization over the Years: Development and
the world.
Influential Factors Commodification of human body usually takes place because of a number of advantages which the human body offers to the perpetrators of the crime. It acts as a production site, where the
demands of capitalist labour lead to dehumanization of subjects, female bodies are majorly exploited because of their reproductive potential, body fragments may be emotionally charged objects of desire,
commoditization. Thus, the
is mostly prevalent in the poverty- stricken areas of the least-developed and developing countries.
Lack of employment opportunities also forces people to engage in the practice of trafficking and organ trade to earn easy
money. Other reasons or factors which influence this commoditization of human life are lack of general awareness, lack of education, traditional beliefs and practices, low social status etc.
embodying prized transformative properties that bear the power to harm or heal14 etc. Poverty and financial deprivation are the major factors which influence
practice
reject the forced choice of legalization---shifting focus to broader
economic disparities is key to understand the neoliberal system of
exploitation within which organ sales even become possible
Ayan Kassim 13, University of Toronto, Terrains of Terror and Modern Apparatuses of
Destruction: Transplantation, Markets, and the Commoditized Kidney,
digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=auchs&seiredir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fq%3D%2522organ%2Bsa
le%2522%2Bcapitalism%26btnG%3D%26hl%3Den%26as_sdt%3D0%252C14#search=%22orga
n%20sale%20capitalism%22
Same Story
In the global narrative of resource allocation, the growing entitlement and rapaciousness of those with fiscal means and privilege is
not new in the history of industrial capitalism; the black market in kidneys is no different. What is novel in
the case of the illegal kidney trade is the kind of resource that is being depleted from those less fortunate, through the extension of transplantation and biomedicine, by the
terrains of terror and violence that
transplantation inherently promote is increasingly seen as an acceptable traffic of
persons in bits and parts. These apparatuses compromise the corporeal security of those of
economic disenfranchised underclasses. Interestingly, Frantz Fanon argues compellingly that “medicine [was] one of the most tragic features of
the colonial situation”.65 With the domination of Western medicine, technologies, and clinical procedures,
as well proponents for legal, unregulated markets in kidneys like philosopher James Stacey Taylor’s recent advocacy of more Western
doctors and Western-style hospitals in the Global South to “provide a well-run and market disciplined-place for potential buyers and sellers to transact”, 66 one can
see how this new situation is neo-colonial in flavour; credence is given to the
hegemonic rule of Western technologies and medical epistemologies.
globalization of industrial capitalism. By looking at kidneys and markets I argue that
Ultimately, any market solution to renal disease abstracts the hidden costs of this
inherently exploitative trade . It promotes unrealistic patient demands by giving hope to the
sick that these donor pools can be filled, feeding the fetish of fresh kidneys and of life itself.67
Those who extol the market as potential win-win situation (as means to acquire kidneys while simultaneously increasing the
ability of the economically dispossessed to become participants in the global economy) fail to attend to the complexities of why such
drastic disparity and illness exist. Thus, the focus must shift to critical analysis of how
growing economic disparities, and the system with which it is accepted in,
engender such extreme economic conditions in which selling a body part to
survive has become an option . As Donald Joralemon and Phil Cox aptly state, “if society has a moral duty to rescue, the obligation surely is not
limited to rescuing those of means.”68 Idyllic would be to stick solely to altruistic donations since the social
relationships produced through this method is less exploitive. Although, probably naive is the idea that once the kidney
became a commodity and the voracious supply and demand that it unleashed, can ever be restrained again. Kassim 19 67 Scheper-Hughes, “Commo
Alt
Alt solves the case---empathetic understanding of neoliberal
exploitation lets us take control of rampant marketization
Poonam Motwani 13, Institute of Information Technology, & Anand Swaroop Das, National
Law University Odisha, Neo-Liberal Globalization and the Commoditization of Life: A
Comprehensive Perspective, http://www.jpg.net.in/demo/JPG%20%20December%202013.pdf#page=20
Conclusion One of the gifts that has been brought to us by the 21st century is the wonder of
seeing the world around us shrink at a rapid pace with the serum of globalization. The purposive
economic and social integration on various fronts however, do not exclude the prominence of
issues laced with negative connotations spreading on an international front. Along the same
lines we seek to examine that the how the issue of Human trafficking, which has become a
globally prominent issue, adversely affecting individual development, national, regional and
global security, but also contravenes international conventions on human rights and women's
rights.34 Throughout this integrated world, the marginalized section of the society lives under
the shadow of exploitation in the developed and the developing world alike, thus giving this
particular crime a high prevalence in the society. The principled development of this form of
business in human beings follows the two basic principles that every business looks for – High
profit and low risk35. The former being based on the rarity and supply constraint of the
commodity36 and the latter being based on the fact that most of the people that are trafficked
belong to poor dysfunctional households with often no recourse to legal remedies. Hence the
obvious presence of will and desires in the humans becomes a moral and political anathema to
the rapid concept of “life for sale” model that is being brought about in the globalized arena.
Thus, it is stated that in today’s era of rampant neo-globalization, markets govern the order of
the day. They dictate what is to be produced and how it is to be packaged. But one has to take
the counterintuitive approach that markets are made for men and not the other way
round. Hence, the degrading principle of commoditization of humans for
satisfaction of needs and profits needs to be shunned. An empathetic approach
needs to be adopted in order to combat such a phenomenon.
UQ is on our side---neoliberalism’s collapsing in the rest of the world
Stephen Gill 12, Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science, York University,
Toronto, and a former Distinguished Scholar in International Political Economy of the
International Studies Association, 2012, Global Crises and the Crisis of Global Leadership, p. 24
Indeed, in several
parts of the world , this neoliberal governing formula of authoritarianism and/or controlled
electoral democracy/depoliticization is coming under increasing, popular, grassroots pressure . It is not just
in Latin America that this is happening, where, in Venezuela and Bolivia, ‘twenty-first-century’ socialism has produced a
substantial shift towards a new political order, consolidating progressive, more democratic constitutional forms as well as new
regional economic and security alliances outside US control. In early 2011 a
wave of Arab revolt, originating in Tunisia,
spread throughout the Middle East. It encompassed not only the epicentre of Arab civilization, in Egypt, but also moved
quickly to Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain. It was met initially with repression in some contexts, particularly brutal in
Libya, provoking civil war and panic in the oil markets. In Tunisia and Egypt, peaceful protests – with protesters, apparently,
behaving en masse as a form of revolutionary collective leadership – quickly forced the resignation of their long-standing military
dictators. Demands
were made for a new political order, with more democracy, redistribution and
meaningful rights. The protests were motivated by a variety of grievances but originated in outrage concerning the way that
authoritarian and dictatorial leaders had, particularly since the early 1990s, orchestrated policies directed by the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) of neoliberal restructuring, including privatization, to plunder the state and the economy for themselves and
for their business allies – while the majority suffered poverty, mass unemployment, and soaring food prices as well as repression and
a denial of basic rights and dignity. This state of affairs was widely perceived as being orchestrated by the strategic interests of the
United States and Israel with Arab leaders as its subordinates, despite widespread popular opposition to Israeli policies, particularly
in Palestine. The regional uprisings drew on a broad swathe of spontaneous and organized secular forces in ways that put to rest the
Orientalist myth that inheres in the ‘clash of civilizations’ hypothesis – specifically, that Muslim masses can be mobilized only
through religion (see Chapter 8, by Mustapha Pasha). The uprisings also refute ‘the claim of American-sponsored dictators that they
are the great bulwark against a rising tide of “Islamo-fascism” (a word of American coinage) that is sweeping the Arab lands. What
are in fact sweeping across the Arab world today are the good old values of the French Revolution’ (Ahmad 2011).1 What these
revolutionary changes share is their secular, democratic form and a repudiation of years of imperialism
and neoliberal restructuring . In the Arab world they herald, particularly given the novel ways in which they combine
spontaneous and organized forces in a mass collective leadership, ‘the autumn of the patriarchs’ (Ahmad 2011). These forms seem to
be consistent with an emergent ‘postmodern prince’ (see Chapter 13).
By contrast, neoliberal leadership operates from the ‘top down’ to underpin ‘market civilization’ and its governing
discourse of ‘disciplinary neoliberalism’ (Gill 1995a). Such leadership – which operates systematically to favour affluent strata of the
population – seeks to stabilize dominant power structures and strategies of rule, albeit with some marginal
modifications under crisis conditions in ways that do not fundamentally challenge the dominant modes of accumulation and power.
This formula is what we can expect to guide the powerful Egyptian army in the aftermath of President Mubarak’s resignation, taking
its political guidance from the United States and Israel. Whether this moment signals not only the probable end of patriarchal
leadership but, more acutely, the end of disciplinary neoliberalism in the Arab world is a more open question. Neoliberalism can go
with authoritarian, technocratic or, indeed, limited electoral forms of leadership and indirect democracy. Strategic cooperation
between Israel, Egypt and the United States guarantees Israeli domination of the region; Egypt offers the Pentagon a crucial military
platform and privileged access to the Suez Canal, and so the United States will seek to maintain its strategic assets in Egypt. The
United States may ‘allow a controlled democratizing process . . . and hope that the elections held under this umbrella will be won
mainly by the liberal, IMF-oriented elite’ – the very outcome, Aijaz Ahmad (2011) notes, that many of the protesters have hoped for.
Progressive forces seeking an authentic revolution may therefore come to be co-opted and constrained in a ‘passive revolution’, to
use Antonio Gramsci’s phrase (Hoare and Nowell-Smith 1971).
This global situation helps form some of the backdrop to the considerations of this volume.
Indeed, one of the key features of disciplinary neoliberalism since its emergence in the 1970s is
how, until now, its crises of accumulation (e.g. debt and financial crises) have also provided
opportunities for dominant forces to extend and deepen neoliberalism as a geopolitical project,
as I noted in the early 1990s (Gill 1990; see also Panitch, Albo and Chibber 2011). In the present
conjuncture, dominant forces in the global North have taken advantage of the crisis of
accumulation to deepen and extend disciplinary neoliberalism – a strategy facilitated by the
general absence of significant, organized forces of opposition. As has been noted, this is less
obviously the case in the global South, where the global crisis of accumulation coincides with a
crisis of authoritarian rule, perhaps opening up new possibilities for progressive forces to press
for new forms of governance.
AT: Solves war
cap causes massive power imbalances and interventions by the West
to sustain neoliberal globalization
Matthew Norley 14, Summer Intern at UNICEF, Political Economy, U Birmingham,
“Capitalism and Insecurity: A Symbiotic Relationship,” www.e-ir.info/2014/02/04/capitalismand-insecurity-a-symbiotic-relationship/
Instead, neoliberal
capitalism exploits economically weaker states, leading to a compromise in their
security. Two prime examples are the cases of Somalia and Haiti in the 1980’s, who are to this day constrained by neoliberal policies in ravaged
economies, largely disputing Friedman’s view that capitalism is synonymous with freedom. Furthermore, Francis Fukuyama’s claim that “capitalism
flourishes best in a egalitarian society,” when “80% of the world’s population live in countries where income differentials are widening” (Global Issues,
2013), is at best sardonic—leaving us to question the integrity of this ‘mode of production.’¶ Within this premise, therefore, this essay adopts a Marxist
approach and exposes the role of the three actors (institutions, imperial nation states, and MNCs) responsible for promoting insecurity in developing
states and argues in favour of a “change in the frame of reference, from an economic one serving the interests of the global North to a post colonial one”
(Barawi & Laffey, 2006). As a result, this essay neglects both Friedman and Fukuyama’s faith in capitalism and concludes that capitalism as a doctrine
has perpetuated insecurity, rather than creating security. ¶ The Haiti rice liberalisation case, initiated by the WTO, is an ideal example to reinforce the
negative impact played by neoliberal institutions in weaker states through the promotion of Structural Adjustment Programs, or “economic policies for
developing countries, by the provision of loans conditional on the adoption of certain policies” (Collins, 2013: 426). The Caribbean island relied on rice
as a key security crop prior to 1995; in spite of it being one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, Haiti was self sufficient in its production
the
WTO granted Haiti’s membership to the international trading club on the condition that the country would
slash its import tariffs. This allowed other markets to dump their rice—at shattering costs—into
the Haitian economy. For example, “tariffs on rice imports were cut from 35% to 3% in a single stroke with devastating effects
on producer prices, production and livelihoods of small farmers” (Oxfam, 2002). Although it is evident that the impacts that came
as a result of these policies restricted Haiti’s autonomy, what is more concerning is the WTO’s disregard for
destroying the framework of a society that functioned based on an agrarian model,
compromising the nations economic and social security to unimaginable extents.¶ An equally striking
example is the IMF’s intervention in Somalia in the early 1980s, which exacerbated the country’s agricultural crisis that a drought
of the crop, while imposing a 35% income tariff on foreign rice, allowing its domestic economy to function (Oxfam, 2002). In 1995, however,
strained. Somalia’s self-sustaining agricultural model allowed it to function without foreign aid until “austerity measures imposed by the Washington
consensus” led
it into the path of destabilisation (Chossudovsky, 2011). “In Somalia, ten years of IMF economic medicine laid the
the country is
facing structural violence and famine; for instance, “ tens of thousands of people have died
from malnutrition in the last few months , and the lives of several million people
are threatened ” (Chossudovsky, 2011). It is through Somalia’s anguish that neoliberal capitalism is most accurately portrayed as “the lack
foundations for the country’s transition towards economic dislocation and social chaos” (Chossudovsky, 2011). Today,
of ownership and control of means of production is a fundamental cause of life threatening insecurity for huge numbers of people” (Herring, 2013: 50).
This assertion is true for countries such as Somalia and Haiti where neoliberal institutions such as the IMF and the WTO lured the countries out of their
own hands. As a result, this
premise helps to understand the imperialistic nature of capitalism, as its
international agenda serves the interests of the more powerful states and institutions that
consolidate their power at the expense of less developed states.¶ In order to fully appreciate the
insecurity promoted by capitalism on a global scale, it is equally important to assess the
decisions made by hegemonic powers, such as the USA, when acting as ‘global policemen,’ as
well as those made by neoliberal institutions. To recite Noam Chomsky, the Gulf War of 1990
“demonstrated the conduct of ‘business as usual’ for powerful Western elites” (Bayliss, 2011), as
Western states led by the USA invaded Kuwait, opting to use military force rather than
compromising through diplomacy to avoid war. This underpins the Marxist notion of militarism, “the
idea that military efficiency is the highest duty of the state” (Collins, 2013: 421), and strengthens the
argument against capitalism for its promotion of structural violence to achieve an
outcome.¶ Similarly, the US led invasion in the 2003 Iraq War reinforces Marxist belief that hegemonic
states like “the USA have positioned themselves as the policemen of world capitalism” (Bayliss, 2011). Economic
interests, in particular, play a role here, as the Bush oligarchy pushed for direct control of the second largest oil producer in the Middle East, Iraq
(Ollman, 2003). Prior to 2003, no Western oil firm had a footing in Iraq, “but thanks to the invasion and occupation, the companies are now back”
(Jamall, 2012). The continued presence of oil companies in the region in 2013 questions the West’s rhetoric nearly a decade ago, when soldiers were
mobilised in the face of a humanitarian crisis and what was positioned as a security threat to the West. ¶ Instead,
the coin has flipped.
There is far more insecurity in Iraq while the USA has stood out to benefit from the resource
abundance now in their hands. In fact, as stated rather bluntly by Abdullhay Zalloum in Oil Crusades: America Through Arab Eyes, “the last thing
the US cares about in the Middle East is democracy. It is about oil, full stop.” The economic agenda led by the West has
resulted in the decimation of Iraq’s internal stability , with Foreign Policy currently classifying it as a “failed
state in critical condition” and where there have been nearly 115,000 casualties since 2003. This is in line with the Marxist argument illustrated in this
essay, ‘that capitalist
states prioritise their economic agenda over the security of states in the
developing world.’ Nonetheless, examples such as these that have enabled “writers such as Noam Chomsky and Eric Herring to argue the
ways in which powerful states in the West are threats to international peace and security ,
rather than solely providers of security” (Baylis, 2011). ¶ Also inherent to capitalism, and a key culprit in aggravating economic insecurity in developing
countries, is the role of Multinational Corporations (MNCs). The assumption that international activities of MNCs benefit the pockets of rich and poor
alike is largely misjudged, according to Chomsky in his analysis Power in the Global Arena. To reinforce this claim, a report from Oxfam criticises
MNCs for widening the poverty gap in developing countries: “twenty years ago, the
ratio of average income in the LDC
countries to average income in rich countries was 1:87, it is now 1:98 and the gap is widening at
an accelerating rate” (Oxfam, 2006). The alarming nature of widespread economic inequality is largely
due to the facilitated entry of MNCs into poorer countries, where often, poorer countries are unable to resist the
economic benefits that could be introduced by international commerce, often occurring at the expense of a lack of autonomy within the economic
sector. (Collier, 2010: 55).¶ A prime example of this follows Myanmar’s ‘opening up’ to foreign multinationals earlier this year where, among many
problems, lies a threat posed by the international tobacco industry. In a country where only 9.2% smoke western styled filter cigarettes, MNCs have
targeted a huge opportunity. Although “the health ministry is trying to implement measures to curb smoking, the trade ministry is keen to lure in
millions of dollars” (Min, 2013). This dilemma summarises the issues that have been addressed not only from an economic security perspective but also
from another security angle- human security. Though the Myanmar government has attempted to protect its civilians from these threats, it has
prioritised its economic security by allowing British American Tobacco to invest $50 million in the economy. Considering that “local cigarette firms are
no match [to multinationals]” (Min, 2013), we are likely to witness the tobacco industry in Myanmar shift into western hands. ¶ As this example
demonstrates, often developing countries have no option but to allow MNCs into their economies. However, this happens at the expense of reduced
economic security, and in this case, the security of its people for health reasons. Furthermore, the example also reinforces the notion that capitalism is a
system that operates at the mercy of economic incentives, highlighting the economy as the referent object in the neoliberal capitalist scope, and
dismissing all else.¶ As this essay demonstrates, the economic exploitation of the developing world is a characteristic inherent to the very functioning of
capitalism, whose process has been explained through an understanding of its catalysts: neoliberal institutions, imperial states, and multinational
corporations. In spite of Kant’s assumption that “the spirit of commerce cannot exist side by side with war,” this essay’s case studies serve as stinging
examples to strongly counter the liberalist notion that capitalism is synonymous with freedom. Instead, this essay conforms to a Marxist approach to
the study of capitalism and reveals that capitalism
and security.
perpetuates global insecurities rather than creating peace
**Case
Shortages
2NC Donation T/---UQ
Altruistic donation is increasing---solves the shortage but it depends
on fragile public trust---the plan wipes that out
Gabriel Danovitch 8, M.D., Prof of Clinical Medicine and Nephrology at UCLA, and Francis
Delmonico, MD, Clinical Prof of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, “The prohibition of
kidney sales and organ markets should remain,” Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation
Volume 13(4), August 2008, p 386–394
One of the arguments repeatedly made in favor of commercialized living donation is that the
current noncommercial system has stagnated and is impotent to address the organ donor shortage.
We most certainly share the legitimate concern for the suffering of those waiting for an organ; we are motivated by it. That concern in itself, however, does not represent an
It is no longer
true that the rates of deceased donor organ donation are static. In the U nited S tates, largely through the efforts of so-called
‘Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative’, the 3-month average deceased kidney donation rate has risen
approximately 30% since January 2001 , and these increases have largely reflected increases in recovery of kidneys from standard criteria donors
[28]. Multiple innovative endeavors to increase other sources of donor organs are available. These include living
donor exchange, intended candidate donation, desensitization protocols for positive cross-match–and blood group–
incompatible pairs, increased use of donors after circulatory determination of death, and increased use of
extended-criteria donor kidneys. The kidney transplant waiting list continues to grow but the number of candidates
on that list who are deemed ‘active’ and hence transplantable has been stable over the last
several years (www.unos.org accessed 3 April 2008). It is not ‘pie in the sky’ to look forward to a reduction
in the waiting list to acceptable levels if we continue to invest our best efforts, resources, and ingenuity.
Progress is also being made in the development of an improved allocation system for deceased donor kidneys that will better
exploit the life prolonging benefit of the procedure [37•]. All of these new endeavors expand and exploit the noncommercial
and altruistic driving force of our success to date. They build on what we know rather than
endanger what we have achieved.¶ Conclusion¶ We do not doubt that those of our colleagues who support the commercialization of organ
sales abhor the venal exploitation of vulnerable populations as a source of organs. We argue, however, that organ sales and markets, ‘ regulated’ or
otherwise, will inevitably lead to the furtherance of such exploitation and in the process undermine the considerable
gains that have been made in noncommercial organ donation both from the living and the deceased. Our arguments are based not
principally on theoretical or abstract ethical grounds but on documented practical experience and lessons learned from other disciplines. The international transplant
community will be best served by investing in public trust and not undermining it.
argument in favor of commercialization, because it is quite unclear that a commercial system would be effective and it could well be destructive.
Black Market---2NC
Regs would be ineffective and unenforceable
Gabriel Danovitch 8, M.D., Prof of Clinical Medicine and Nephrology at UCLA, and Francis
Delmonico, MD, Clinical Prof of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, “The prohibition of
kidney sales and organ markets should remain,” Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation
Volume 13(4), August 2008, p 386–394
It is true that much of the available data on exploitive commercialized donation come from countries where the process is unregulated [24••].
Surely, in the United States, regulation of the process would prevent such abuse. But what kind of
regulation would be required? Even if the destitute, who donate in developing countries, were somehow
excluded from the process ( and it is not clear how this could be legally achieved), the
donors would still be those who are in dire need of money and perhaps desperate to receive it. Consider, for
example, a potential paid donor requested to repeat a urinalysis because of the finding of proteinuria or
microscopic hematuria or borderline low renal function: a common request. Would the passage of the urine sample need to
be monitored to ensure that the donor is indeed the source of the sample? Whose responsibility will it
be to ensure that the factors listed above are not applicable to the donor and that the information
that is provided is accurate? After all, large amounts of money are at play and the major incentive for the
donor is financial? It has been suggested that abuse could be minimized by ensuring that paid donation will be regulated within geopolitical borders
Whose responsibility will it be to check on citizenship or naturalization
documents and establish identity theft?¶ These examples (it would not be difficult to come up with more) are quite
plausible, they belong to our ‘real’ world. The blithe contention [24••] that a regulated system could be tacked on to
our current United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) directed system is unrealistic. Physicians are not
trained to be police men or private detectives or agents of the US Immigration and Naturalization
Service and they should not take this role upon themselves. If kidney vending were to be permitted, it would seem that
[24••].
specially trained investigators would need to be included in the transplant team to ensure the accuracy of the paid donor's history and to ensure public
safety. A medical process would perforce become a legal one. The assertion with respect to a ‘regulated’ market in organ sales in the United States that
‘the procedural framework would be virtually identical to the system currently used to evaluate altruistic living donors’ is both misleading and
unrealistic [24••].
1NR
DA
Overview
Causes extinction---disease defense doesn’t apply
Arturo Casadevall 12, M.D., Ph.D. in Biochemistry from New York University, Leo and Julia
Forchheimer Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Albert
Einstein College of Medicine, former editor of the ASM journal Infection and Immunity, “The
future of biological warfare,” Microbial Biotechnology Volume 5, Issue 5, pages 584–587,
September 2012, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-7915.2012.00340.x/full
In considering the importance of biological warfare as a subject for concern it
is worthwhile to review the known
existential threats. At this time this writer can identify at three major existential threats to humanity: (i) large-scale
thermonuclear war followed by a nuclear winter, (ii) a planet killing asteroid impact and (iii) infectious disease . To this
trio might be added climate change making the planet uninhabitable. Of the three existential threats the first is deduced from the
inferred cataclysmic effects of nuclear war. For the second there is geological evidence for the association of asteroid impacts with
massive extinction (Alvarez, 1987). As to an existential threat from microbes recent
decades have provided
unequivocal evidence for the ability of certain pathogens to cause the extinction of entire
species. Although infectious disease has traditionally not been associated with extinction this
view has changed by the finding that a single chytrid fungus was responsible for the extinction
of numerous amphibian species (Daszak et al., 1999; Mendelson et al., 2006). Previously, the view
that infectious diseases were not a cause of extinction was predicated on the notion that many
pathogens required their hosts and that some proportion of the host population was
naturally resistant. However, that calculation does not apply to microbes that are acquired
directly from the environment and have no need for a host, such as the majority of fungal
pathogens. For those types of host–microbe interactions it is possible for the pathogen to kill off every
last member of a species without harm to itself, since it would return to its natural habitat
upon killing its last host. Hence, from the viewpoint of existential threats environmental microbes
could potentially pose a much greater threat to humanity than the known pathogenic microbes, which
number somewhere near 1500 species (Cleaveland et al., 2001; Taylor et al., 2001), especially if some of these species acquired the
capacity for pathogenicity as a consequence of natural evolution or bioengineering.
Turns the case--Property rights cause endless litigation that undermines the organ
supply
Michael H. Scarmon 92, JD from the University of South Dakota, “Brotherton v. Cleveland:
Property Rights in the Human Body - Are the Goods Oft Interred with Their Bones,” 37 S.D. L.
Rev. 429 (1991-1992), HeinOnline
Although a market in organs might provide an adequate supply, markets are notoriously subject
to the vagaries of supply and demand .188 Moreover, a recognition of property rights in
corpses may actually impede the supply of organs by encouraging litigation . Not only will
the number of Brotherton-like cases be increased, but an organ market will introduce the
complex web of issues and conflicts inherent in economic transactions . Unquestionably, a
recognition of property rights will constantly create a tension with current federal
policies, which are unequivocal in promoting the donation and outlawing the sale of human organs.189
Solves the case--Biomedical innovation solves the shortage
UT 11, University of Texas at Austin Cockrell School of Engineering, Nov 8 2011, “Building
Organs,” http://www.engr.utexas.edu/features/7144-alikbuildingorgans
What if, instead, we could grow tailored-made tissues
and organs in the lab to replace those damaged in the body? In place of a heart transplant, heart attack patients could receive lab-grown muscle tissue to
replace their weakening one. Eventually, livers, kidneys and hearts damaged by disease could be replaced with
artificial organs. Such a scenario would reduce time and costs for patients, decrease the chances of rejection in some transplants and allow patients to sidestep many of the other hazards
associated with organ donation. Fewer transplants would be necessary. More people would live. “There’s a huge shortage currently of transplant
tissues and organs. For so many different diseases, there’s no current treatment and, for someone to get a transferable organ, someone potentially has to die,” said Ali Khademhosseini, a 36year bioengineer who joined The University of Texas at Austin's Department of Biomedical Engineering as a Donald D. Harrington Fellow and visiting scholar for the fall 2011 semester. “So it would
be a great biomedical use if we could treat those patients with artificial tissues and organs.” In
the not so distant past, this notion was unimaginable. But recent breakthroughs in the emerging field of tissue engineering are
redrawing the boundaries of what’s possible in biology and engineering. Among its feats, the field has enabled the development of edible and
artificially engineered meat, and – on the more serious side – tissue-engineered skin is aiding patients with severe burns and ulcers. This still up-and-coming field has also made great
leaps toward making artificial organs a more conceivable and, potentially, viable option for treating patients in the future. For that, Khademhosseini is among
But what if there was another way? What if preserving a life didn’t have to hinge on another life ending?
an esteemed group of scientists at the forefront of innovation.
Property UQ
No property rights now
Robert D. Truog 12, Professor of Medical Ethics, Anaesthesiology & Pediatrics at Harvard
Medical School, Aaron S. Kesselheim, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical
School, and Steven Joffe, Emanuel and Robert Hart Associate Professor of Medical Ethics and
Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, July 5 2012,
“Paying Patients for Their Tissue:The Legacy of Henrietta Lacks,”
http://humansubjects.energy.gov/news/articles/Lacks.pdf
If patients own their tissues, even after removal from their bodies, then it follows that they have the
right to demand payment when a profitable discovery derives from them. One of the earliest
cases addressing this question was Moore v. Regents of the University of California (2). John Moore had his spleen removed as
part of his treatment for hairy cell leukemia. Several years later, he initiated a lawsuit after learning that his physician at the University of California,
Los Angeles, had developed a lucrative cell line (MO) from this tissue; at the time Moore predicted a market value of around $3 billion. In 1990, the
California Supreme Court decided that Moore did not have a property interest in his removed
cells, worrying that giving property rights to patients would “hinder research by restricting access to
the necessary raw materials” and might “destroy the economic incentive to conduct
important medical research.” Most other legal precedent supports the view that patients do
not maintain a property interest in discarded tissue (3).
US courts and legislators are holding the line against property rights
for body parts in order to avoid sales
Kerry Howley 6, contributing editor at Reason magazine, Dec 29 2006, “Who Owns Your
Organs?” http://reason.com/archives/2006/12/29/who-owns-your-organs
The Colavito case is just one more manifestation of the increasingly bizarre proprietary status of human body parts. Every
corpse has a
legal value of zero, but transplantable organs and tissues grow more valuable every day. Body
parts aren’t legal property to the people born with them, but can be distributed by
doctors, universities, biotech companies, and procurement agencies for profit or otherwise.¶ Courts
and legislatures typically link their resistance to corporeal property rights with the supposedly
corrupting power of markets. A legal regime that gives Debra Lucia the right to gift her husband’s organs might well give
her the right to sell them. As the amicus brief filed by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) and others put it “The laws and
regulations surrounding deceased organ donation, allocation and transplantation have purposefully established a
legal infrastructure that excludes property law concepts ....Instead, organs are donated for transplantation
voluntarily (not sold or appropriated) and are regulated as a scarce national resource.” ¶ The culture that has evolved in support
of organ donation in the United States is heavily invested in a narrative of gift
exchange, and property rights are perceived as contrary to that narrative . But as the Colavito case
dramatically demonstrates, if organs are gifts, they are gifts of a bizarre kind. The United Anatomical Gift Act designates to whom the gift can be given
(typically organ procurement agencies) and for what purposes (therapy, education, or research.) A gift is a transfer of property, but with the status of
the body as property in flux, the ability to gift is severely curtailed.
The prohibition on organ sales explicitly places body parts outside of
property law
Alexandra K. Glazier 6, Vice President & General Counsel at the New England Organ Bank,
JD from Boston University, Lecturer in Law at Boston University; Pamela S. Gilman, JD from
Boston University, Administrative Partner at Barton Gilman LLP; Andrew R. Weiner, JD from
Northeastern University, Barton Gilman LLP; John D. Persons, III, UNOS Corporate Counsel,
JD from Mercer University, June 16 2006, AMICI CURIAE BRIEF OF AMERICAN
ASSOCIATION OF TISSUE BANKS, AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR TRANSPLANT SURGEONS,
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR TRANSPLANTATION, ASSOCIATION OF ORGAN
PROCUREMENT ORGANIZATIONS, NATCO – THE ORGANIZATION FOR TRANSPLANT
PROFESSIONALS, NATIONAL KIDNEY FOUNDATION and UNITED NETWORK FOR
ORGAN SHARING, Colavito v New York Organ Donor Network,
http://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/sharedcontentdocuments/colavito_amicus_brief_and_motion
_-_as_filed.pdf
NOTA was enacted in 1984 to accomplish several purposes including encouragement of organ donation, development of an organ allocation system
that functions on a nationwide basis, and establishment of a basis for effective federal oversight of the OPTN. S. Rep. No. 382, 98th Cong., 2nd Sess.
1984. NOTA also
established the federal criminal prohibition against acquiring, receiving or transferring organs for
valuable consideration, thereby criminalizing the buying and selling of organs for profit. 42 U.S.C. § 274e. As with the UAGA ,
which preceded NOTA and is not preempted by NOTA, the context of NOTA is gift law, as opposed to contract or
property law . The donation of organs as permitted under NOTA involves the gift of a national
resource into a system designed to preserve public trust by allocating organs based on medical
utility and equity. The prohibition against buying and selling organs expresses clear
legislative intent that the transfer of organs from donors to recipients be considered outside of the
traditional legal principles of contract and property law . Indeed, the Task Force established by NOTA
characterizes organs as “a national resource” rather than private property . Organ
Transplantation: Issues and Recommendations, Report of the Task Force on Organ Transplantation, at 86 (1986).
Property Rights Bad
Undue burdens---forces researchers to follow up with every patient
which deters commercial applications
Jasper Bovenberg 5, lawyer and research fellow of the Netherlands NWO Genomics
Initiative at the University of Leiden Faculty of Law and the Centre for Medical Systems Biology,
JD and PhD in law from the University of Leiden, “Whose tissue is it anyway?” Nature
Biotechnology 23, 929 – 933, http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v23/n8/full/nbt0805929.html
Property model . The logic of this model rests on the assertion that people have a personal property right
in their tissue. Among other legally protected interests, a personal property right confers on its owner the power
to sell the object owned, in exchange for consideration. A property right in human tissue
would enable a tissue or cell donor to transfer tissue or cells by sale and, by way of consideration, claim a share in any
profits that might accrue from their use. If such a personal property right were recognized, a tissue donor
would be able to sue anyone using their tissue without their permission on the basis of
conversion10. The tort of 'conversion' can be defined as an intentional exercise of dominion and control over personal property, without the owner's consent and
without lawful justification, that so seriously interferes with the right of another to control that property that the tortfeasor (a person guilty of an act that gives rise to a right of
action for damages) may justly be required to pay the other the full value of the property10. Plaintiffs alleging conversion of their personal property must not only show a
property interest in their tissue, but also that they suffered some injury through interference with the property. In addition to restoration of ownership, plaintiffsalleging
Apart from being a radical
departure from current legal precedent, the property model has several drawbacks. Perhaps most seriously, it
would commoditize human body parts. It would also place undue burdens on researchers by forcing them to
check the pedigree of every tissue sample used in research, it would deter commercial
applications by creating uncertainty over who has legal title to inventions and it would result
in a tragic anticommons, by empowering millions of tissue contributors to negotiate
a benefit share for each use of their tissue11 . In addition, it would be hard to assess the relative contribution made by the donation of
conversion may seek, by way of monetary damages, the fair market value of the property at the time of conversion.¶
a single sample to the resultant diagnostic or drug.
Fear of liability---researchers will scrap studies and hospitals will end
participation in research to avoid lawsuits
IBA 87, Industrial Biotechnology Association, Amicus Curiae brief in Moore v. Regents of the
University of California, Biotechnology Law Report 8(2): 83-143,
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/blr.1989.8.83?journalCode=blr
Faced with potential liability for conversion, researchers will undoubtedly shrink from using
or transferring any human tissue , cell line or DNA for which clear title cannot be established .
Existing research might have to be scrapped, and years of effort and development time lost. For the future,
hospitals would either have to present every patient with a complicated consent or release form transferring title for all purposes, or adopt special forms
to be executed before each use of an actual specimen. In either event it
would become necessary to establish a
comprehensive nationwide recording system to track and verify each cell line's chain of title each
time a preserved specimen is desired for research, and to inform former patients of newly discovered commercial possibilities.¶ Such
requirements will obviously be difficult to meet given the transient nature of modern society, and the fact that the commercial potential of any given cell
line may not be discovered until years after an initial excision from the source individual. (Human Tissue Research, p. 251.) Moreover, there are likely
to be many instances in which the
need for identification and record-keeping will conflict with the duty of
patient confidentiality. The likely result will undoubtedly be that many hospitals will
withdraw from participation in research involving excised tissue due to the cost and
potential liability associated with nonconsensual use of human tissue.¶ Altogether, it is difficult to estimate how damaging the lower
court's decision will be to medical and scientific research, but the prospect of significant damage is certain .
Negotiation breakdown---the current laws guarantee tissues go to the
researchers---property rights cause patients to hold out for higher
prices which researchers refuse
Marcella Bothwell 13, chair of the Pediatric Airway and Aero-Digestive team in Rady
Children's Hospital and faculty member at the UC San Diego Department of Surgery, and Erez
Yoeli, economist at the Federal Trade Commission, lecturer at the Rady School of Management,
and visiting scholar at the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard University,
“Assigning Property Rights to Human Tissue,” Rady Business Journal, Winter 2013,
http://rady.ucsd.edu/rbj/2013/Winter/tissue-rights/
In the case of human tissue, the efficient outcome is for both parties to reach an agreement and
for the tissue to end up with the researchers, since it has already been extracted and at that point
the patient does not expect to incur further costs. The problem is that doctors and researchers have
substantially better information about the potential value of the tissue, and it is difficult for them
to credibly convey this value to patients. Doctors also have an incentive to downplay the potential
gains from the tissue during negotiations so that they avoid paying a high price for the samples. Recognizing this,
patients might not agree to small payments even though there is no cost to them to provide their
already extracted tissue, in hopes of holding out for higher payments. Because the value of the typical tissue
sample is actually quite low until it is developed by researchers, in many cases researchers would
refuse to make higher offers, and no trade would occur.¶ By assigning the property rights to the extracted
tissue to researchers , the courts have eliminated the possibility that negotiations will break
down and ensured that the tissue will end up with the researchers . This solution may not be
fair to patients, but it is simple and socially efficient. Until other alternatives develop, we can at least be satisfied that the courts have implemented a socially efficient solution one that
puts tissue to the most economically productive use.