Cal EM Neg v. Emory KL – Fullerton R6
1NC
K – Governmentality
Organ sales are part of the conversion of a living body into a commodity – it moves
the physical form into something analogous to a market and requires that the
individual to responsibilize themselves over their own bodies
Sharp 2000 - Professor of Anthropology at Barnard (Lesley A., “The Commodification of the Body and
Its Parts” Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 29 (2000), pp. 287-328, JSTOR)
Hogle (1999), writing of organ and tissue procurement in postunification Germany, questions a frequent assertion made by anthropologists that
the commodification of the medicalized body is, in fact, a new development. After all, the human body has been commodified in a host of
contexts: For centuries within Europe alone, bodies have long served as work objects for anatomists and research scientists, as well as prized
curios for medical collections (Hogle 1999:23, 35). One need only turn to the works of historian R. Richardson (1987, 1996) to encounter
detailed accounts of medical commodification over several centuries. Writing especially of developments in Britain, she describes how
expanding interests in the internal workings of the body have driven a lengthy history of
commercialization. Further, the demands for corpses and their parts have long been plagued by a host of moral dilemmas focusing on
consent and reparation, financial and otherwise. Among the most disturbing historical trends is the tendency within the
medical marketplace to exploit the bodies of the poor and disenfranchised, where paupers frequently emerge
as being of greater worth dead than alive
(Richardson 1987; see also Knott 1985, Laqueur 1983). Richardson (1996) also
stresses that current debates over the distribution of valued body parts parallel much earlier arguments on how to alleviate the scarcity of
corpses needed for dissection. We
need only consider such relatively recent contexts as Tuskegee, Nuremberg,
military- and prison-based research, and pharmaceutical trials in the Third World to expose a clinical and
related scientific propensity to prey on the disenfranchised. As these historical antecedents underscore, socially
expendable categories of persons are ironically transformed into valued objects through their
involvement in medical research. Foucault’s (1975) writings on clinical practice are pivotal here: the medical art of
dissection marks among the most profound epistemic shifts in the history of biomedicine. From the Renaissance onward,
dissection offered new ways of seeing, understanding, and, of course, fragmenting the body, generating, in turn, new forms of
knowledge and, ultimately, sociopolitical power (Foucault 1975; cf Sawday 1995). It is important to understand, however,
that it is not merely dissection—that is, the opening up and peering into the body—that characterizes this transformation. To this one must also
add the art of surgery (Hirschauer 1991, Selzer 1974), in which, most importantly, associated technologies have rendered possible permanent
transformations of the body (yet another shift involves vi- sual technologies; this is discussed below). Butchart (1998) extends Foucault’s
arguments to colonial southern Africa, exploring shifts in medical and industrial perceptions of the colonized body: An early one-dimensional
approach focused on surface appearance, color, and texture; a subsequent two-dimensional approach privileged internal anatomy; and a lateemerging three-dimensional approach in- tegrated constructions of personhood (Butchart 1998; cf Comaroff & Comaroff 1992, Packard 1989).
Such examples underscore the significance of medico-clinical practices in me- diating the objectification
of the body. In response to Hogle (1999), what, then, is so unusual about current medical trends? Martin (1992) similarly asks why anthropologists have showered so much attention on the body in recent years. She appeals to L6vi-Strauss (1967), who argued decades before
that a sudden increase in scholarly interest in the primitive appeared to herald the imminent disappear- ance of this social category. Martin
suggests that current
interest in the body similarly coincides with its disappearance. As she explains, we are now
witness- ing “a dramatic transition in body percept and practice... the end of one kind of body and the
beginning of another” that—like global economies—is open, flexible, and unbounded
Appadurai 1996). Csordas( 1994), writing of embodiment, likewise states that “the
(Martin 1992:121; cf
body is passing through a critical moment,”
one offering the “methodological opportunity to reformulate theories of culture, self, and experience” (p.
4).
Biopower and neoliberalism combine to create a unique form of necropolitics that
drives endless extermination in the name of maintaining the strength of the market
Banerjee 2006 - University of South Australia (Subhabrata Bobby, “Live and Let Die: Colonial
Sovereignties and the Death Worlds of Necrocapitalism,” Borderlands, Volume 5 No. 1,
http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol5no1_2006/banerjee_live.htm)
10. Agamben shows how sovereign power operates in the production of bare life in a variety of contexts:
concentration camps, 'human guinea pigs' used by Nazi doctors, current debates on euthanasia, debates on human rights
and refugee rights. A sovereign decision to apply a state of exception invokes a power to decide the
value of life, which would allow a life to be killed without the charge of homicide. The killings of mentally and physically handicapped
people during the Nazi regime was justified as ending a 'life devoid of value', a life 'unworthy to be lived'. Sovereignty thus becomes a decision
on the value of life, 'a power to decide the point at which life ceases to be politically relevant' (Agamben, 1998: 142). Life is
no more
sovereign as enshrined in the declaration of 'human' rights but becomes instead a political decision, an
exercise of biopower (Foucault, 1980). In the context of the 'war on terror' operating in a neoliberal economy, the
exercise of biopower results in the creation of a type of sovereignty that has profound implications for
those whose livelihoods depend on the war on terror as well as those whose lives become constituted as 'bare life' in the economy of the war
on terror. 11. However, it is not enough to situate sovereignty and biopower in the context of a neoliberal economy especially in the case of the
war on terror. In
a neoliberal economy, the colony represents a greater potential for profit especially as it is
this space that, as Mbembe (2003: 14) suggests, represents a permanent state of exception where sovereignty
is the exercise of power outside the law, where 'peace was more likely to take on the face of a war
without end'
and
where violence could operate in the name of civilization.
But these forms of necropolitical
power, as Mbembe reads it in the context of the occupation of Palestine, literally create 'death worlds, new and unique
forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjected to conditions of life conferring upon
them the status of theliving dead
' (Mbembe, 2003: 40). The
state of endless war is precisely the space
where profits accrue whether it is through the extraction of resources or the use of privatized militias or
through contracts for reconstruction. Sovereignty over death worlds results in the application of
necropower either literally as the right to kill or the right to 'civilize', a supposedly 'benevolent' form of
power that requires the destruction of a culture in order to 'save the people from themselves' (Mbembe,
2003:22). This
attempt to save the people from themselves has, of course, been the rhetoric used by the
U.S. government in the war on terror and the war in Iraq. 12. Situating necropolitics in the context of economy, Montag
(2005: 11) argues that if necropolitics is interested in the production of death or subjugating life to the power of death then it is possible to
speak of a necroeconomics - a space of 'letting die or exposing to death'. Montag explores the relation of the market to life and death in his
reading of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments. In Montag's reading of Smith, it is 'the dread of death, the great
poison to the happiness...which while it afflicts and mortifies the individual, guards and protects the society' (cited in Montag, 2005: 12). If
social life was driven solely by unrestrained self-interest then the fear of punishment or death through juridical systems kept the pursuit of
excessive self-interest in check, otherwise people would simply rob, injure and kill for material wealth. Thus, for Smith the universality of life is
contingent on the particularity of death, the production of life on the production of death where the intersection of the political and the
economic makes it necessary to exercise the right to kill. The market then, as a 'concrete form of the universal' becomes the 'very form of
universality as life' and requires at certain moments to 'let die'. Or as Montag theorizes it, Death establishes the conditions of life; death
as
by an invisible hand restores the market to what it must be to support life. The allowing of death of the
particular is necessary to the production of life of the universal. The market reduces and rations life; it not
only allows death ,
words, it
it demands death be allowed by the sovereign power , as well as by those who suffer it. In other
demands and required the latter allow themselves to die. Thus alongside the figure of homo sacer,
the one who may be killed with impunity, is another figure, one whose death is no doubt less spectacular than the first and is the object
of no memorial or commemoration: he who with impunity may be allowed to die, slowly or quickly, in the name of the
rationality and equilibrium of the market (Montag, 2005: 15). Montag, therefore, theorizes a necroeconomics
where the state becomes the legitimate purveyor of violence: in this scenario, the state can compel by
force by 'those who refuse to allow themselves to die'
(Montag, 2005: 15). However, Montag's concept of
necroeconomics appears to universalize conditions of poverty through the logic of the market. My concern however, is the creation of death
worlds in colonial contexts through the collusion between states and corporations. 13. If
states and corporations work in
tandem with each other in colonial contexts, creating states of exception and exercising necropower to
profit from the death worlds that they establish, then necroeconomics fails to consider the specificities of colonial capitalist practices. In this
sense, I would argue that necrocapitalism
emerges from the intersection of necropolitics and necroeconomics, as practices of
accumulation in colonial contexts by specific economic actors - multinational corporations for example - that
involve dispossession, death, torture, suicide, slavery, destruction of livelihoods and the general
management of violence. It is a new form of imperialism, an imperialism that has learned to 'manage
things better' . Colonial sovereignty can be established even in metropolitan sites where necrocapitalism may operate in states of
exception: refugee detention centres in Australia are examples of these states of exception (Perera, 2002). However, in the colonies (either
'post' or 'neo'), entire regions in the Middle East or Africa may be designated as states of exception.
By upholding the distinction between legal/illegal forms of activity and selfhood the
affirmative endorses the sovereign’s ability to draw lines and enforce sovereign
violence
Edkins and Pin-Fat 2005 (Jenny and Veronique, “Through the Wire: Relations of Power and
Relations of Violence” Millennium)
One potential form of challenge to sovereign power consists of a refusal to draw any lines between zoe
and bios, inside and outside. 59 As we have shown, sovereign power does not involve a power relation in Foucauldian terms. It is
more appropriately considered to have become a form of governance or technique of administration
through relationships of violence that reduce political subjects to mere bare or naked life. In asking for a
refusal to draw lines as a possibility of challenge, then, we are not asking for the elimination of power
relations and consequently, we are not asking for the erasure of the possibility of a mode of political being
that is empowered and empowering, is free and that speaks: quite the opposite. Following Agamben, we are suggesting that it is
only through a refusal to draw any lines at all between forms of life (and indeed, nothing less will do) that sovereign
power as a form of violence can be contested and a properly political power relation (a life of power as potenza) reinstated. We could call
this challenging the logic of sovereign power through refusal. Our argument is that we can evade sovereign
power and reinstate a form of power relation by contesting sovereign power’s assumption of the right
to draw lines,
that is, by contesting the sovereign ban.
Any other challenge always inevitably remains within this
relationship of violence . To move outside it (and return to a power relation) we need not only to contest its
right to draw lines in particular places, but also to resist the call to draw anylines of the sort sovereign
power demands . The grammar of sovereign power cannot be resisted by challenging or fighting over
where the lines are drawn . Whilst, of course, this is a strategy that can be deployed, it is not a challenge to sovereign
power per se as it still tacitly or even explicitly accepts that lines must be drawn somewhere (and
preferably more inclusively). Although such strategies contest the violence of sovereign power’s drawing
of a particular line, they risk replicating such violence in demanding the line be drawn differently . This is
because such
forms of challenge fail to refuse sovereign power’s line-drawing ‘ethos’, an ethos which, as
Agamben points out,
renders us all now homines sacri or bare life . Taking Agamben’s conclusion on board, we now turn to
look at how the assumption of bare life can produce forms of challenge. Agamben puts it in terms of a transformation: This
biopolitical
body that is bare life must itself instead be transformed into the site for the constitution and installation
of a form of life that is wholly exhausted in bare life and a bios that is only its own zoe -.... If we give the name form-of-life to
this being that is only its own bare existence and to this life that, being its own form, remains inseparable from it we will witness the emergence
of a field of research beyond the terrain defined by the intersection of politics and philosophy, medico-biological sciences and jurisprudence. 60
Agamben is asking that bare life be transformed into form-of-life; in other words, he
is calling for what we have named the
assumption of bare life. Such an assumption of bare life also entails a refusal to draw lines and indeed, is
predicated upon it. 61 In what follows we return to the scene with which we started this paper, the case of asylum seekers who sew
their lips shut. We consider this act as an example of a form of action that takes on or assumes bare life such that it is transformed into formoflife. In doing so, we are seeking to explore how a properly political power relation can be reinstated from a relation of violence.
This makes endless cycles of wars and genocides inevitable—populations are labeled
as disposable
Balibar 4, Etienne Balibar Emeritus Professor of Philosohy at University of Paris 2004 ALSO X and Distinguished Professor of Humanities at University of
California-Irvine, We, The People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship, p. 126-29
In the face of the cumulative effects of different forms of extreme violence or cruelty that are displayed
in what I called the “death zones” of humanity, we are led to admit that the current mode of production
and reproduction has become a mode of production for elimination, a reproduction of populations
that are not likely to be productively used or exploited but are always already superfluous, and
therefore can be only eliminated either through “political” or “natural” means—what some Latin American
sociologists provocatively call poblacion chatarra, “garbage humans,” to be “thrown” away, out of the global city.’6
If this is the case, the question arises once again: what is the rationality of that? Or do we face an absolute
triumph of irrationality? My suggestion would be: it is economically irrational (because it amounts to a limitation of the
scale of accumulation), but it is politically rational—or, better said, it can be interpreted in political terms. The fact
is that history does not move simply in a circle, the circular pattern of successive phases of accumulation. Economic and political class
struggles have already taken place in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the result of limiting the possibilities of exploitation,
creating a balance of forces, and this event remains, so to speak, in the “memory” of the system. The system (and probably also some of its
theoreticians and politicians) “knows” that there is no exploitation without class struggles, no class struggles without organization and
representation of the exploited, no representation and organization without a tendency toward political and social citizenship. This is
precisely what current capitalism cannot afford: there is no possibility of a “global social state” corresponding to the “national social states”
in some parts of the world during the last century. I mean, there is no political possibility. Therefore there is political resistance, very
violent indeed, to every move in that direction. Technological revolutions provide a positive but insufficient condition for the
deproletarianization of the actual or potential labor force. This time, direct political repression may also be insufficient. Elimination or
extermination has to take place, “passive,” if possible, “active” if necessary; mutual elimination is
“best,” but it has to be encouraged from outside. This is what allows me to suggest (and it already takes me to my third
question) that if the “economy of global violence” is not functional (because its immanent goals are indeed
contradictory), it remains in a sense teleological: the “same” populations are massively targeted (or the
reverse: those populations that are targeted become progressively assimilated, they look “the same”). They are qualitatively
“deterritorialized,” as Gilles Deleuze would say, in an intensive rather than extensive sense: they “live” on the
edge of the city, under permanent threat of elimination; but also, conversely, they live and are perceived as
“nomads,” even when they are fixed in their homelands, that is, their mere existence, their quantity, their movements,
their virtual claims of rights and citizenship are perceived as a threat for “civilization.” In the End, Does
“Extreme Violence” Form a “Global System”? Violence can be highly “unpolitical”—this is what I wanted to suggest— but still form a
system or be considered “systematic” if its various forms reinforce each other, if they contribute to creating the conditions for their
succession and encroachment, if in the end they build a chain of “human(itarian) catastrophes” where actions to prevent the spread of
cruelty and extermination, or simply limit their effects, are systematically obstructed. This teleology without an end is exactly what I
suggested calling, in the most objective manner, “preventive counterrevolution” or, better perhaps, “preventive counterinsurrection.” It is
only seemingly “Hobbesian,” since the weapon used against a “war of all against all” is another kind of war (Le Monde recently spoke about
Colombia in terms of “a war against society” waged by the state and the Mafiosi together).’9 It
is politics as antipolitics, but it
appears as a system because of the many connections between the heterogeneous forms of violence
(arms trade indispensable to state budgets with corruption; corruption with criminality; drug, organ, and modern slave
trade with dictatorships; dictatorships with civil wars and terror); and perhaps also, last but not least, because there
is a politics of extreme violence that confuses all the forms to erect the figure of “evil” (humanitarian
intervention sometimes participates in that), and because there is an economics of extreme violence, which
makes both coverage and intervention sources of profitable business. I spoke of a division between
zones of life and zones of death, with a fragile line of demarcation. It was tantamount to speaking of the “totalitarian” aspects of globalization. But globalization is clearly not only that. At the moment at which humankind
becomes economically and, to some extent, culturally “united,” it is violently divided “biopolitically.” A politics of
civility (or a politics of human rights) can be either the imaginary substitute of the destroyed unity, or the set of
initiatives that reintroduce everywhere, and particularly on the borderlines themselves, the issue of
equality, the horizon of political action.
The alternative is to refuse to imagine legality – only the formation of autonomous
geographies can challenge biopolitical neoliberalism
Pickerill and Chatterton 2006 - Leicester University AND Leeds University (Jenny and Paul, “Notes
towards autonomous geographies: creation, resistance and self-management as survival tactics”
Progress in Human Geography30, 6 (2006) pp. 730–746)
In essence, autonomy is a coming together of theory and practice, or praxis. Hence, it is not solely an intellectual tool nor a guide for living;
it is a means and an end. Autonomous geographies represent the deed and the word, based around ongoing examples and
experiments. Autonomous
spaces are not spaces of deference to higher organizational levels
governmental organizations, political representatives or trade union officials. They
such as non-
are based around a belief that the
process is as important as the outcome of resistance , that the journey is an end in itself. As the Zapatistas say: ‘we
don’t know how long we have to walk this path or if we will ever arrive, but at least it is the path we have
chosen to take’. Autonomous geographies are based around a belief in prefigurative politics (summed up by
the phrase ‘be the change you want to see’), that
change is possible through an accumulation of small changes ,
providing much-needed hope against a feeling of powerlessness. Part of this is the belief in ‘doing it yourself ’ (see
McKay, 1998) or
creating workable alternatives outside the state . Many examples have flourished embracing ecological
direct action, free parties and the rave scene, squatting and social centres, and opensource software and independent media (Wall, 1999; Seel
et al., 2000; Plows, 2002; Chatterton and Hollands, 2003; Pickerill, 2003a; 2006). Resources are creatively reused, skills shared, and popular or
participatory education techniques deployed, aiming to develop a critical consciousness, political and media literacy and clear ethical
judgements (Freire, 1979). In
the terrain opened up by the failure of state-based and ‘actually existing
socialism’, autonomy allows a rethinking of the idea of revolution – not about seizing the state’s power
but, as Holloway (2002) argues, ‘changing the world without taking power’
(Vaneigem, 1979). Autonomy
does not
mean an absence of structure or order, but the rejection of a government that demands obedience
(Castoriadis, 1991). Examples of postcapitalist ways of living are already part of the present (Gibson-Graham, 1996). The documentation of the
‘future in the present’ has been a hallmark of work by anarchist, libertarian and radical scholars from Peter Kropotkin (1972) to Colin Ward
(1989) and Murray Bookchin (1996). Their
work looks for tendencies that counter competition and conflict,
providing alternative paths. Some of these disappear, others survive, but the challenge remains to find
them, encourage people to articulate, expand and connect them. Autonomous projects face the
accusation that, even if they do improve participants’ quality of living, they fail to have a transformative
impact on the broader locality and even less on the global capitalist system (DeFilippis, 2004). Consequently, in talking of local
resistance, Peck and Tickell (2002) suggest that ‘the defeat (or failure) of local neoliberalisms – even strategically important ones – will not be
enough to topple what we are still perhaps justified in calling “the system”’ (p. 401). However,
commentators make the mistake
of looking for signs of emerging organizational coherence , political leaders and a common programme that bids for
state power,
when the rules of engagement have changed . A plurality of voices is reframing the debate,
changing the nature and boundaries of what is taken as common sense and creating workable solutions
to erode the workings of market-based economies in a host of, as yet, unknown ways. Rebecca Solnit’s writings
on hope remind us that, while our actions’ effects are difficult to calculate, ‘causes and effects assume history
marches forward, but history is not an army . It is a crab scuttling sideways, a drip of soft water wearing
away stone’ (Solnit, 2004: 4).
The construction of autonomous geographies constitutes a stealing away of the body
from capital – this denial of valuation is the key starting point of resistance.
Perkins 10 Associate Professor of Geography at Ohio University [Harold A., “Getting Beyond the
Plastinated Political Economy of “Late Modern Cannibalism””, Antipode Vol. 42 No. 1]
Capital’s Social Autopsy A critical investigation into the death of people on display reveals what capital is really attempting when it replaces
poor people’s bodily fluids with polymers. Haraway’s (1991:200) thesis on the production of bodies as “boundary projects” is particularly
insightful here. She says
boundaries that constitute the physical and social bodily subject come about only
through “mapping practices” generated in social situations, hence bodies cannot pre-exist these
conditions. In other words, late capitalist technologies constantly change and blur the boundaries between
bodies and their environment; they penetrate, permeate, and fundamentally reconstitute the body in
numerous profitable ways from cradle to grave. This is possible because the body’s boundaries are inherently
porous, allowing for all manner of capitalist forays into the remotest reaches of our tissues (Martin 1998).
Capital, always seeking novel spatio-temporal investment opportunities, deploys plastination as a visualization technology to literally penetrate
the porosity of the body, in turn exploding its space/time by feathering its muscles and replacing putrefying fluids with pleasant and permanent
polymers. The technology turns these bodies into spatially expanded and temporally extended prostheses that support not life, but the extraction
of monetary value where none existed before. This technological explosion of the body’s space/time blurs corporeal boundaries in novel ways
that permit crowds of voyeurs to safely peer into immortal versions of their own (un)bounded physiologies. Quite literally as Stern (2003:3)
suggests then, plastination offers consumers the permanence of a “consumer heaven” that obfuscates the temporality and unevenness of our own
social relations. As a result, poor people serve a perverse form of social reproduction whereby wealthier people cannibalistically consume the
We therefore need to
start protecting the porosities of vulnerable living bodies by strengthening and defending vigorously the
boundaries between those bodies and the infiltrating polymers. Fortunately, social relations have a way of
breaking free from their plastinated bonds, revealing under the scrutiny of our social autopsy the brutal,
corporeal realities that likely contribute to the transformation of indigent/incarcerated living bodies into
modern-day wealth-generating freak shows. We must therefore use what we learn from this autopsy
intimate details of their bodies in what amounts to a profitable and increasingly popular form of recreation.
to co-opt the body as an unfinished project from capital in order to remake it free from monetary
value in whole or part, in life and in death.
The findings from our autopsy thus help to answer Harvey’s questions
Let us consider these
plastinated bodies as the dismal metric by which we launch a resistance against predatory
commodification of the corporeal through the establishment of new protective boundaries around all
destitute bodies. In this difficult process we shall also consider plastinates a gruesome reminder of our failure
to create a form of social reproduction that gets beyond cannibalizing its own global underclass. As
geographers we potentially have much to contribute to the making of protective boundaries through
our research. As sympathetic human beings, we must demand that governments, corporations, and
(1996:277), “Whose body is it that is to be themeasure of all things?And exactly how and what can it measure?”
body/organ brokers stop profiting from the sale of bodies and/or body parts procured from the
destitute. The survival and prosperity of our species as a whole depends on it.
DA – Iran Ptx
Obama’s using capital to persuade Congress to avoid sanctions but opponents are
nearing a veto-proof majority
Riechmann, 12-29—Deb, AP writer, “Obama doesn't rule out opening US embassy in Iran; Congress
planning January vote on sanctions,” MN Star Tribune,
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/286993011.html --BR
While President Barack Obama hasn't ruled out the possibility of reopening a U.S. Embassy in Iran, Republicans
say the Senate will
vote within weeks on a bill to impose more sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program. Obama was asked in an
NPR interview broadcast on Monday whether he could envision opening an embassy there during his final two years in office. "I never say
never," Obama said, adding that U.S. ties with Tehran must be restored in steps. Washington
and its partners are hoping to
clinch a deal with Iran by July that would set long-term limits on Iran's enrichment of uranium and other activity that could produce
material for use in nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is solely for energy production and medical research purposes. It has agreed to some
restrictions in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from U.S. economic sanctions. On a visit to Israel on Saturday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., said the new Republican-controlled Senate will vote on an Iran sanctions bill in January. He said the
bipartisan sanction legislation says: "If Iran walks away from the table, sanctions will be re-imposed. If Iran cheats regarding any deal that we
enter to the Iranians, sanctions will be re-imposed." Graham also is sponsoring legislation that would require any deal with Iran to be approved
by Congress before sanctions could be lifted. Standing alongside Graham, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Iran a "dangerous
regime" that should be prevented from having nuclear weapons. "I believe that what is required are more sanctions, and stronger sanctions,"
Netanyahu said. The Obama administration has
been telling members of Congress that it has won significant
concessions from Iran for recently extending nuclear talks, including promises by the Islamic republic to allow snap
inspections of its facilities and to neutralize much of its remaining uranium stockpile. Administration officials have been
presenting the Iranian concessions to lawmakers in the hopes of convincing them to support the
extension and hold off on new economic sanctions that could derail the diplomatic effort . Obama has
threatened to veto any new sanctions legislation while American diplomats continue their push for an accord that would set
multiyear limits on Iran's nuclear progress in exchange for an easing of the international sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.
Senate hawks are still trying to build a veto-proof majority of 67 votes with Republicans set to assume
the majority next month. Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., told Fox News Sunday that Senate Republicans might have enough backing from
Democrats to pass veto-proof legislation that would impose more sanctions on Iran. "The good thing about those votes, they will be really
bipartisan votes," he said. "I have 17 Democrats with me. . We
have a shot at even getting to a veto-proof majority in
the Senate."
Plan is massively controversial and pushing it saps PC
F L Delmonico 6, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston,
Massachusetts, USA, “What is the system failure?” Kidney International (2006) 69, 954–955,
http://www.nature.com/ki/journal/v69/n6/full/5000278a.html
As the current president of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), permit me to make clear that there is no resolution before the UNOS Board of Trustees to consider such a proposal — nor will there be a recommendation
to do so. Second, also perhaps to the authors' dismay, Congress did not accept those debate arguments made years ago by Dr. E. Friedman, in the drafting of the 2004 legislation by Senator William Frist.
Unequivocally , Congress rejected them. The Frist legislation had no provision that would postulate a federal government program to petition the poor to sell their
kidneys. The reasons for that congressional opposition
congressional staff
were not detailed in the report language associated with the legislation, but my personal conversation with
brought forth a fundamental ethical principle:
selling one's kidney, selling a part of one's liver, or
selling any other part of one's
body violates the dignity of the human person. If this were not true, then Congress might be obliged to consider a parallel public policy that would permit its citizens to sell
more than just their body parts. The key
contention of the authors that one can dispose of one's body as one sees fit did not
overcome what otherwise would have been a contentious battle
of society
before Congress to the contrary. Further, the notion that society's
acceptance of other high-risk activities is a basis to endorse kidney selling was not found by congressional staff to be realistic. There are high-risk activities, but military service or coal mining is not perceived as prostitution. ¶
Notwithstanding the writings of Drs. Friedman and Friedman and others cited in their commentary,
market of
Congress is well aware that the current opposition to a regulated
organ sales in the U nited S tates remains formidable . This opposition includes the National Kidney
Foundation, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, and The Transplantation Society (international). Thus,
unless Congress were to be apprised of an overwhelming consensus of the public and the transplant community to change the
current federal
law, the authors may have to acknowledge that their arguments are not sufficiently compelling to do so. The 1984 N ational O rgan T ransplant A ct that prohibits organ sales imposes
the burden on those who would change the law to muster the forces , but those concerted forces plainly do
not exist .
Obama’s capital is do or die—failure triggers war
Winsor, 14 (Ben, “A Coalition Is Working Furiously Behind The Scenes To Support Obama's Iran Talks,”
Oct 2, http://www.businessinsider.com/rag-tag-iran-coalition-backing-diplomacy-2014-10)
Since November 2013, the Obama administration has engaged with Iran in tense, drawn-out nuclear
negotiations which optimists hope could bring an end to decades of hostility and mistrust. Throughout it
all, Congress has threatened to play the spoiler , with a tough sanctions bill passing the House and
looming in the Senate which would almost certainly scuttle the fragile talks over the Iranian nuclear program.
Now, as the deadline for the end of the talks approaches, a coalition of legislators, advocacy groups, and White
House officials are working to hold Congress back from the brink of thwarting what they see as a
historic window of opportunity. They're fighting against legislators and conservative groups
Heritage Foundation and The Free Enterprise Institute
like The
who are pushing for the US to take a hawkish stance . Legislators,
led by Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, have been maneuvering quietly behind the scenes in Congress to keep the talks alive. At the same
time,
officials from the White House have been leaning heavily on Senate Democrats to refrain from
bringing a sanctions bill to the floor . On the outside, a diverse range of pro-diplomacy groups, led by organisations like the
National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and the liberal Jewish organization J Street, have found a common cause and rallied together to lobby
for restraint. Even the Quakers are energized. “This
is a do-or-die moment, either we succeed, or we go in a much
more negative direction,” said NIAC co-founder Trita Parsi at the group’s annual conference last weekend. Parsi sees
the negotiations as a historic moment during a narrow window of opportunity . Presidents on both
sides have sunk significant time and energy into the talks and Parsi believes the current leadership in
both countries is more likely to make a deal than those who came before — or might come after. “The
next president, whatever political party they’re in, is not going to spend precious political capital
battling Congress… [Obama] is the guy ,” Parsi said. Supporters fear that failure of the talks could trigger
increased sanctions, the rise of hardliners in Iran, and relations spiraling toward military
confrontation .
Veto threats are only credible if Obama has capital
Lee, 5—Andrew Lee (Professor of Political Science at Claremont McKenna College) 05 “Invest or Spend?
Political Capital and Statements of Administration Policy in the First Term of the George W. Bush
Presidency”, Georgia Political Science Association, Conference Proceedings
The veto, traditionally an
executive prerogative designed as a defensive check on Congress, has become an offensive tool for the
president’s legislative agenda. In addition to blocking disfavored legislation, the president may threaten
to veto favored legislation to compel Congress to change provisions within legislation. Congressional
leaders take a veto threat very seriously. How does Congress gauge the credibility of a veto threat?
With these words, the Framers created veto power, a central feature of our legislative process.
Legislators would gauge the “political capital” of the president to determine the credibility of the
threat . According to political journalist Tod Lindberg (2004), political capital is a “form of persuasive authority stemming from a position of
political strength” (A21). Political capital can be measured by favorability and job approval polling numbers because they signify support for the
president’s actions and agenda. For example, President Bush’s leadership after the September 11th terrorist attacks increased his favorability
and job approval polling, and thus his political capital. He subsequently was able to launch a war with Afghanistan and Iraq. In such cases, the
president’s high political capital would make a veto more credible . Congress must also reckon whether the
president will think an issue is worth spending political capital on. As Richard S. Conley and Amie Kreppel (1999) write, “Whenever the
President . . . act[s] to change the voting behavior of a Member, political capital is expended. It would not be logical to expend that capital in
what was known ahead of time to be a losing battle” (2).
Goes nuclear—tons of different actors and scenarios for extinction
Avery, 13 -- Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen (11/6/2013, John Scales Avery, “An Attack
On Iran Could Escalate Into Global Nuclear War,” http://www.countercurrents.org/avery061113.htm)
Despite the willingness of Iran's new President, Hassan Rouhani to make all reasonable concessions to US demands, Israeli pressure groups in
Washington continue to demand an
attack on Iran. But such an attack might escalate into a global nuclear war, with
War I, we should remember that this colossal disaster
escalated uncontrollably from what was intended to be a minor conflict. There is a danger that an attack
catastrophic consequences. As we approach the 100th anniversary World
on Iran would escalate into a large-scale war in the Middle East , entirely destabilizing a region
already deep in problems. The
that is
unstable government of Pakistan might be overthrown, and the revolutionary
Pakistani government might enter the war on the side of Iran, thus introducing nuclear weapons into
the conflict . Russia and China, firm allies of Iran, might also be drawn into a general war in the Middle East. Since
much of the world's oil comes from the region, such a war would certainly cause the price of oil to reach
unheard-of heights, with catastrophic effects on the global economy . In the dangerous situation that could
potentially result from an attack on Iran, there is
a risk that nuclear weapons would be used, either intentionally, or
by accident or miscalculation. Recent research has shown that besides making large areas of the world
uninhabitable through long-lasting radioactive contamination, a nuclear war would damage global
agriculture to such a extent that a global famine of previously unknown proportions would result. Thus,
nuclear war is the ultimate ecological catastrophe. It could destroy human civilization and much of the
biosphere. To risk such a war would be an unforgivable offense against the lives and future of all the
peoples of the world, US citizens included.
DA - Xenotransplantation
Xenotransplantation will be feasible in the near future, but continued research is
needed
Cooper 12
[David K. C., MD, PhD, “A brief history of cross-species organ transplantation”, Proc (Bayl Univ Med
Cent). Jan 2012; 25(1): 49–57: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3246856/]
PREDICTING FUTURE PROGRESS In 1969, Sir Peter Medawar, the British scientist who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1960 and is
considered the father of transplant immunology, stated, “We should solve the problem [of organ transplantation] by using heterografts
[xenografts] one day if we try hard enough, and maybe in less than 15 years.” This indicates that even Nobel Prize winners can get their
prophecies wrong. In contrast, in 1995, Sir Roy Calne, another great pioneer in organ transplantation, stated that xenotransplantation “is just
around the corner, but it may be a very long corner.” He has been proved correct. At least he and Sir Peter Medawar were optimistic about the
development of xenotransplantation, whereas Norman Shumway, the pioneer of heart transplantation, stated rather pessimistically that
“xenotransplantation is the future of transplantation, and always will be.” Nevertheless,
there is clear evidence that
xenotransplantation will become successful in the relatively near future . There is a Native American proverb,
“Timing has a lot to do with the success of a rain dance.” With
the increasing variety of genetically engineered pigs now
becoming available, it is likely that the remaining problems will be resolved and the timing for
xenotransplantation will be right. For example, in Pittsburgh, we have available to us (through our colleagues at
Revivicor Inc., of Blacksburg, VA) pigs with no fewer than nine different genetic manipulations, of which at least five have
been combined in a single pig(Table (Table22). With interbreeding between these various pigs—and with new genetic
modifications being introduced—it is likely that the problems of rejection and coagulation dysfunction (which is
the present major barrier [67]) will soon be overcome. Although there are relatively few hard data at present, the current
evidence is that the function of pig organs and cells in humans may be adequate (68).
Solving the organ shortage halts xenotransplantation research
George 6
[James, PhD, “"Xenotransplantation: An Ethical Dilemma", Current Opinion in Cardiology, 21(2), March
2006, p138-141]
Introduction The continuous and intractable shortage of donor organs has provided strong motivation to
provide alternative sources of donor organs for solid organ transplantation. Xenotransplantation, in
principle, is an obvious solution because the supply of donor organs could theoretically be expanded to an
adequate size by simply breeding more animals. In recent years, most attention and resources in
xenotransplantation have been directed towards the development of pig strains that can be used as a
source of donor organs for clinical transplantation. The immuno- logical barriers to transplantation of
xenogeneic tissues that are discordant with respect to humans are formid- able, but continuing investigations have
progressed such that the initial barrier, hyperacute rejection, has been largely overcome in the pig to primate
combination. Details of these investigations and prospects for further progress have been extensively reviewed over the last 2 years [1—6]. This
information, therefore, will only be briefly examined here. The rest of the discussion will focus on the ethical issues that have been raised
regarding the implantation of animal tissues into human beings, the genetic modification of animals for this purpose, and the issues of risks to
individual patients versus the overall community.
Xenotransplantation research develops genetic modification of swine
Moore 14
[Charles, “Lung Biotechnology’s Pig Lungs For Human Transplant Project Awaits R&D Facility
Construction”: http://pulmonaryhypertensionnews.com/2014/06/25/lung-biotechnologys-pig-lungshuman-transplant-project-awaits-rd-facility-construction/]
Genomics development and commercialization specialist firm Synthetic Genomics Inc. (SGI) of La Jolla, CA, and
Silver Spring, Maryland-based Lung Biotechnology Inc., a subsidiary of United Therapeutics Corporation, have entered into a
multi-year research and development agreement to develop humanized pig organs using synthetic
genomic advances. The collaboration will initially focus on developing organs for human patients in need
of organ transplants, such as engineered lungs and lung tissues for patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension or other lung diseases.
As part of the agreement SGI will receive royalties and milestone incentives from the development and commercialization of the organs. SGI
also announced in May a $50 million equity investment by Lung Biotechnology. Additional financial details were not disclosed. Using unique
DNA design, DNA synthesis and genome editing, as well as genome modification tools, SGI
will develop engineered primary pig
cells with modified genomes. This work will entail modification of a substantial number of genes at an
unprecedented scale and efficiency. United Therapeutics will leverage its xenotransplantation expertise
to implant these engineered cells, generating pig embryos which develop and are born with humanized
lungs. With the science and technology advances made by the SGI team in recent years, the companies
are hoping to develop these new methods and advances to create organs that are safe and effective for
use in humans. The project currently awaits construction of a new facility to be located at The Research Triangle Park (RTP) near Durham,
Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, home to one of the largest clusters for AgBio, BioTech and life sciences in the U.S. NC BioTech says
about 2/3 of NC’s 500+ life science companies are in the Triangle. According to a report by Laura Oleniacz of the Durham Herald-Sun, the new
research and development facility is to be built on 132 acres of land United THerapeutics bought from pharmaceuticals multinational
GlaxoSmithKline in 2012 for $17.5 million, with the new development to include renovation of a 150,000 square foot architecturally significant
portion of an existing 550 square foot structure known as the Elion-Hitchings Building. The tract purchased from GlaxoSmithKline is contiguous
to United Therapeutics’ existing facilities in the park. Ms. Oleniacz reports that construction on the new R&D facility at RTP is targeted to run
from 2015 to 2017, but there are still some regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles that need to be negotiated. Demolition of the unwanted
400,000 square feet of the Elion-Hitchings Building is now complete, including recycling of 78 percent of 38,100 tons of concrete, 7,683 tons of
steel, and 215 tons of stainless steel and copper. Part of the new construction 250,000 square foot R&D facility is to house different types of
pigs to be utilized in providing lung tissues for transplantation research, incorporating a central hub to simplify food and water delivery to
supply the animals. Ms. Oleniacz notes that In 2011 United Theapeutics acquired a Virginia-based Revivicor, a company that focused on
genetically engineered pigs to provide, among other things, diabetes treatment and organs and tissues for use in transplant surgery known as
“xenografts,” and that while UTC doesn’t have a definitive timeline for completing the project, a company spokesperson indicated that the new,
solar powered pathogen-free facility and renovation of the Elion-Hitchings Building will each take about 24 months to execute.
shutterstock_159432848“We are pleased to be partnering with Lung Biotechnology and United Therapeutics to advance organ
transplantation,” comments J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., Founder and CEO, SGI. “We
believe that our proprietary synthetic
genomic tools and technologies, coupled with United Therapeutics’ knowledge and advances in
regenerative medicine technologies and treatment of lung diseases, should enable us to develop
humanized pig organs for safe and effective transplant into humans. We believe this is one of the most exciting and
important programs ever undertaken in modern medical science.” Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D., United Therapeutics Chairman and CEO, observes
that “Our new collaboration with Synthetic Genomics is huge for accelerating our efforts to cure end-stage lung disease. Our
combined
expertise should enable us to develop an unlimited supply of transplantable organs, potentially helping
millions of patients who die from end-stage organ disease.” The companies note that about 400,000 people die annually from various
forms of lung disease including cancer In the United States alone, but scarcely 2,000 people are saved with a lung transplant and only about
2,000 are added to the transplant wait list annually. Not even 1 percent of deaths due to lung failure can be avoided due to the gross shortage
of transplantable human lungs. And while previous attempts to rectify this shortage with animal organs have failed due to genomic
incompatibilities, especially with respect to immune and coagulation systems, the collaboration between Synthetic Genomics and Lung
Biotechnology aims to eliminate these genomic incompatibilities.
Developing genetically modified swine is critical to prevent disease outbreak
Whitelaw & Sang 5
[Bruce, Professor of Animal Biotechnology and H.M., “Disease-resistant genetically modified animals”,
Rev. sci. tech. Off. int. Epiz., 2005, 24 (1), 275-283]
Infectious disease adversely affects livestock production and animal welfare, and has impacts upon both
human health and public perception of livestock production. The authors argue that the combination of new methodology
that enables the efficient production of genetically-modified (GM) animals with exciting new tools to alter
gene activity makes the applications of transgenic animals for the benefit of animal (and human health)
increasingly likely. This is illustrated through descriptions of specific examples. This technology is likely to have specific application where
genetic variation does not exist in a given population or species and where novel genetic improvements can be engineered.
These
engineered animals would provide valuable models with which to investigate disease progression
and evaluate this approach to controlling the disease . The authors propose that the use of GM animals will
complement the more traditional tactics to combat disease, and will provide novel intervention
strategies that are not possible through the established approaches.
Introduction In livestock agriculture, the use
of ever-more sophisticated breeding selection strategies will affect animal breeding. Certainly breeding strategies have had an impact on the
‘simpler’ production traits (35) and considerable effort is now being made to apply these selection tools to produce animals with an increased
ability to resist or combat disease (11, 14). This paper argues that the application of transgenic
animals for the benefit of
animal (and human health) is becoming increasingly likely due to the combination of new
methodologies that enable the efficient production of genetically modified (GM) animals, exciting new
tools to alter gene activity and advances in our fundamental understanding of causative agents and the
disease process. The authors anticipate that the timely development of novel projects will demonstrate the feasibility of generating GM
livestock that are resistant to disease (5).
Disease spread risks extinction
John D. Steinbruner, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, “Biological Weapons: A Plague Upon All
Houses,” FOREIGN POLICY n. 109, Winter 1997/1998, pp. 85-96, ASP.
It is a considerable comfort and undoubtedly a key to our survival that, so far, the main lines of defense against this threat have not depended
on explicit policies or organized efforts. In the long course of evolution, the human body has developed physical
barriers and a
biochemical immune system whose sophistication and effectiveness exceed anything we could design or as yet even fully understand. But
evolution is a sword that cuts both ways: New diseases emerge, while old diseases mutate and adapt. Throughout
history, there have been epidemics during which human immunity has broken down on an epic scale. An infectious agent
believed to have been the plague bacterium killed an estimated 20 million people over a four-year period in the fourteenth century, including
nearly one-quarter of Western Europe's population at the time. Since its recognized appearance in 1981, some 20 variations of the HIV virus
have infected an estimated 29.4 million worldwide, with 1.5 million people currently dying of AIDS each year. Malaria, tuberculosis,
and cholera - once thought to be under control - are now making a comeback. As we enter the twenty-first century, changing
conditions have enhanced the potential for widespread contagion. The rapid growth rate of the total world
population, the unprecedented freedom of movement across international borders, and scientific advances that expand the capability for the
deliberate manipulation of pathogens are all cause for worry that the problem might be greater in the future than it has ever been in the past.
The threat of infectious pathogens is not just an issue of public health, but a fundamental security
problem for the species as a whole.
CP – Organ Supply
Text: The United States should
-establish a strict presumed consent policy for organ donation,
-give nonmonetary incentives for cadaveric organ donation by giving waitlist priority
to registered donors,
- amend the portion of the National Organ Transplant Act governing the OPTN registry
of patients requiring organ transplants to include a database that facilitates paired
organ exchanges,
-carry out a public awareness campaign on organ donation, healthy living, and medical
screenings.
- offer free medical screenings.
Counterplan causes millions to donate their organs after death and matches current
patients on the waitlist with organ donors more effectively, reducing the waitlist
Calandrillo 4
[Steve, Associate Professor of Law at Washington School of Law, “CASH FOR KIDNEYS? UTILIZING
INCENTIVES TO END AMERICA’S ORGAN SHORTAGE”, George Mason Law Review, Vol. 13, pp. 69-133,
2004]
Priority Based on One’s Own Willingness to Donate Basing waiting list priority on the patient’s own willingness to donate
may inspire millions of Americans who have previously not taken the trouble to sign up to instead
choose to opt in to donation. This concept has been put into practice by LifeSharers, a nonprofit
organization formed just over two years ago that aims to utilize a person’s internal motivation to save their own life
to save the lives of others.253 LifeSharers incentivizes people to become organ donors (and to become a LifeSharers
member) by giving them the return promise that all members of the organization agree to do- nate their
organs first to other members before they go into the nationwide waiting pool.254 In this manner, people are
encouraged to opt in to donation who otherwise might not, if only from a selfish desire to increase the
likeli- hood that they will be able to find a suitable organ should their own organs fail sometime in the future. To
prevent adverse selection (i.e., people join- ing only because they are currently in need of an organ),255 LifeSharers imposes a six-m
onth moratorium between the date one joins the organiza- tion and the date that they are
entitled to priority to other members’ or- gans.256 LifeSharers’ concept is an appealing one from an intuitive and dis- tributive justice
perspective: it seems only fair that people who agree to donate organs should receive priority if they ever
need one.257 Scholar Alexander Tabarrok agrees, proposing a “no give, no take” policy with respect to organs: if one does not agree to be a
donor, one should not be allowed to receive the benefit of donated organs.258 Ironically, approxi- mately
70% of today’s transplanted organs go to recipients who are not donors themselves, while thousands of
those who are willing to be donors go without.259 All else equal, the scarce supply of human organs should be
allocated first to individuals who themselves are willing to sacrifice to save other people’s lives. While
LifeSharers has implemented this priority ac- cess concept on a grass roots basis, UNOS could modify its allocation rules to implement it immediately on a national
scale. Nevertheless, critics charge that the incentive scheme offered by LifeSharers discriminates against certain populations who cannot donate because of
religious or cultural reasons, and who would therefore be disad- vantaged by their inability to join.260 Further, some argue that it gives members false hope,
primarily because there are not enough people on the organization’s membership roster yet to constitute a reliable supply of or- gans.261 However, membership
has more than doubled in each of LifeShar- ers first two years of existence.262 If LifeSharers continues to grow at this exponential rate, there would be more than
one million members—all po- tential donors—by 2013.263 2. Paired Organ Exchanges Analogous to LifeSharers’ concept of giving priority to those who themselves
are willing donors, “paired
organ exchanges” are a form of moneyless market that provides strong incentives to
individuals to donate so that they also might be able to receive an organ.264 The idea is simple: many people in need of
organs have siblings or other relatives who are will- ing to donate organs to their loved one in an attempt to save their life. However, these relatives may not be
blood-type matches, or the sick person may possess antibodies that could render her family member’s organs un- suitable for transplantation.265 While they writhe
in agony wishing they could do something to help their relative directly, there is often another unrelated person on the nationwide waitlist who would be a good
match for their organs. Few
people are willing to donate a kidney to a stranger—but they would change their
mind in a heartbeat if someone from the stranger’s family had a kidney that matched their relative’s
blood and tissue type. Where two strangers (or their families) have organs that are compatible with each other,
the law should facilitate a paired organ exchange immedi- ately—in effect, boosting the priority of each
individual to receive a trans- plant based on the fact that she (or her family member) donates an organ that saves someone else’s life.266 It
seems only reasonable that we should move a person to the head of waitlist if she or her family donates an organ to save someone else. Paired organ
exchanges accomplish the dual purposes of incentivizing people to donate organs who otherwise might
not (by using self-interest as motivation), while also avoiding the payment of valuable consideration for human organs
(and its host of accompanying concerns).267 Given these vir- tues, scholars such as Michael Morley advocate that the law should not only permit, but actively
promote, paired organ exchanges by individuals (and their family members) who are currently on the nationwide organ waitlist.268 Morley
proposes to
do this by modifying the existing national database of patients in need of organs to include information
about indi- viduals potentially willing to donate on behalf of each patient, and using this data to identify
cross-matches.269 In this manner, “the government could bring together compatible donors and recipients who
would other- wise never meet, and in each successful case allow two transplants to occur that might
otherwise be impossible.”270 The paired organ exchange concept has been largely overlooked in the organ donation debate, but its obvious benefits
have begun to receive greater attention very recently.271 MatchingDonors.com has put into place an analogous idea that capitalizes on the fact that there are
numerous donor- recipient matches possible nationwide that are not being taken advantage of—simply
because donor and recipient do not know each other exists.272 Hence, in exchange for a fee, the company provides “a venue
where pa- tients and potential donors can meet and communicate” to find those avail- able donor-recipient connections which otherwise would never be made.273
In addition, the pure paired organ exchange solution received national at- tention in June, 2004, when the Wall Street Journal profiled a group of physicians at
Massachusetts General Hospital and Johns Hopkins engaging in the practice.274 With help from Harvard economist Alvin Roth, these physicians
designed a “moneyless market”275—by linking people in need with others in need, they create an
exchange based not on dollars but on suitable organs. One example profiled is that of a New England father with blood type A who
could not donate a kidney to his daughter with blood type B.276 With the coordination of various transplant centers, he gave a kidney to a teenager (a stranger)
with blood type A, and the teenager’s sis- ter gave a kidney for the man’s daughter.277 These transplant centers have even begun organ swaps involving three
different people or families in need, but doing so necessarily entails increased complexity to work out the logistical details.278 These difficulties are well worth it,
however, when one considers that 2,000 or more people could receive transplants annually if there were simply a national database that included donors who were
will- ing to engage in these kind of paired organ exchanges.279 Thus, even if paying money in return for human organs is never mor- ally acceptable, moneyless
markets that allow for paired organ exchanges can serve as an important, far less objectionable step in the right direc- tion.280 3. Presumed Consent Public opinion
surveys consistently demonstrate overwhelming sup- port for organ donation, on the order of 80% or more.281 At the same time, less than three out of every ten
people has signed up to become a donor.282 This paradox is hard to swallow if you are one of the seventeen Americans who will die today because no organ was
found in time.283 Each death high- lights the reality that America’s organ shortage is not due to a lack of po- tentially life-saving organs, but rather, the fact that the
vast majority of them are taken to the grave with their owner. One method of correcting this tragic disparity is to presume that all in- dividuals consent to have their
organs donated upon death unless they have expressly opted out during their lifetime—an opt-out rather than an opt-in system.284 Doing so would take advantage
of the strong public consensus in favor of donation, while simultaneously overcoming the minimal barriers there are to having to affirmatively sign up to become an
organ donor to- day. Despite the fact that checking the organ donor box on one’s driver’s license seems easy, many academics have detailed the psychological barriers that prevent individuals or their families from consenting to donation at the time of their death.285 It is reasonable to suspect that switching to an opt-out
system in the U.S. would lead to far higher organ donor participa- tion rates than those currently realized. In fact, consistent with this underly- ing hypothesis, data
indicate that such policies are effective at increasing the rate of organ procurement from eligible individuals.286 In fact, many European nations, including Austria,
Denmark, France, Poland and Switzerland, utilize a presumed consent system in which the decedent’s organs can be removed regardless of her family’s wishes
unless the deceased had expressly opted out.287 A more mild system is employed by Finland, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, where the dece- dent’s
family can prevent organ removal by exercising their right to object to it after their loved one’s death.288 An interesting hybrid regime exists in Singapore, where
citizens are assumed to consent to donation, unless they are members of certain religious groups, including Islam.289 This type of balanced system incorporates
both public consensus in favor of donation, while respecting the beliefs of groups which would likely opt out if given the choice. Despite the thousands of lives that
would be saved, the most signifi- cant obstacle to enacting a presumed consent system in the U.S. is our strong tradition of individual freedom and autonomy.290
Presuming that an individual has agreed to donate her organs runs afoul of many people’s core beliefs in liberty and freedom from government interference. We
would be forced to incur the risk that some individuals would have their organs har- vested who otherwise would have exercised their right to refuse if they knew
they could have. Even with stringent safeguards to protect these indi- viduals, it would be difficult to completely eliminate the risk that some- one’s autonomy
would be violated. However, a few states have enacted extremely limited forms of pre- sumed consent legislation, including statutes that allow coroners to remove
a decedent’s corneas absent an objection from their family, or after fair inquiry to ascertain whether such an objection exists.291 These laws have largely survived
constitutional due process and takings clause challenges.292 However, any effort to expand the notion of presumed consent to allow for the harvesting of all
suitable organs at death would likely meet stiff politi- cal and constitutional resistance.293 As a practical matter, it will be chal- lenging to overcome our traditional
emphasis on freedom and voluntary action to muster the political will to promulgate broad-ranging presumed consent legislation. But, by juxtaposing the decision
regarding presumed consent legislation against the inevitable lives that will be lost without it, perhaps some reasonable minds can be influenced in its favor. 4.
Required Request Even if we cannot gain consensus in America to move to a presumed consent system, we have shown the political and legal will to require hospitals, or other medical care providers, to ask the decedent’s family to donate her organs at the time of her death. The 1987 revision to the UAGA called for health
care professionals to ask families of individuals to consent to organ donation if their loved one had not already signed an organ donor card.294 Various states have
also enacted some form of “required request” legislation.295 There is still debate, however, over who should be doing the asking (i.e., doctor, nurse, hospital staff,
or OPO representative), and whether or not it will work in practice. Frankly, results of required request policies have not been as good as hoped for.296 Orly Hazony
offers a possible hypothesis to explain this out- come.297 He suggests that psychological issues relating to organ procure- ment negatively impact the legal systems
designed to encourage dona- tion.298 Emotional issues involved may deter the decedent’s family from agreeing to donation, as well as prevent health care
professionals from feel- ing comfortable enough to sensitively request donation from the family.299 Therefore, Hazony posits that the solution to the organ
shortage lies in ad- dressing the psychological issues involved in procurement rather than adopting more restrictive legal regimes (e.g., presumed consent).300 By
educating health providers about the need to ask families for consent and by providing training that allows them to do so in a manner that respects the family’s
grieving,301 Hazony argues that we could significantly increase organ donor participation rates. Thus, legally mandating that health care providers ask for organs is
not likely to have a dramatic impact if done alone. Required request statutes need to be accompanied by training, education and public awareness cam- paigns if
they are to have the impact on organ procurement rates that was initially hoped for. Their role is important, however, in sending a clear sig- nal that we cannot
ignore the organ shortage in America simply because addressing it involves issues that are difficult for physicians and families to discuss. 5. National Donor Registry
While there is a national organ waitlist administered by UNOS that contains over 85,000 names, it might
come as a surprise that no cohesive counterpart exists that tracks willing organ donors. The formation of
a na- tional donor registry would be a significant, commonsense step towards putting these two groups
of individuals together to save thousands of lives that do not need to be lost .302 Phyllis Coleman has argued for such
a database, stating that a
national computer registry containing donor status, and other relevant information
such as blood type, is one essential way to effectuate transplants that might otherwise never happen.303
Further, paired organ exchanges would flourish if such a registry existed by allowing individuals on the
waitlist, and their family members, to dramatically increase their chances of finding a suitable swap.304
Today, organizations like MatchingDonors.com purport to provide this type of searching service,305 but charge substantial fees.306 Further,
their efforts could undoubtedly be more successful if a federal registry was es- tablished to serve this very
purpose. Thus , a national donor registry could be instrumental in saving many lives without requiring
that a single dime be paid by organ recipients to donors . However, federal funds would be necessary to create, maintain and
update the registry in the first instance.307 From a public policy perspective, it seems like this expenditure would be easily justified by the concomitant benefits
attached. 6. Public Awareness Campaign Finally, none
of the previously mentioned incentive schemes or pro- posed
solutions to the nation’s organ crisis will be successful without an aggressive public awareness and
education campaign backing them up.308 Americans are generally aware that people die while on
national organ waitlists, but few realize the staggering magnitude of the problem.309 The media pays far more
attention to individual deaths from earthquakes or tornadoes than it does to the thousands of annual deaths from kidney fail- ure310—even though the latter are
far more preventable than natural disas- ters. As a first step, we
must educate America about the crisis and correct the
rampant myths and urban legends that continue to surround organ dona- tion.311 Many Americans are in
favor of donation but still fear that if they signed up to become a donor, then doctors will not try as
diligently to save their life if they were involved in an accident that presented a chance for organ harvesting.312 Some are deterred
because they believe that their fam-ily will be charged for the medical expenses associated with donating their
organs.313 Others think they are too old to be useful donors or that waitlist priority is influenced by celebrity status.314 In addition, we must correct
misperceptions that most religions are opposed to donation.315 In fact, nearly all major religious
denominations—including Christianity and Juda- ism—affirmatively support organ donation where
human lives can be saved.316 Furthermore, some Americans would be willing to donate but choose not to
because they think their bodies will be disfigured by organ harvesting, preventing an open casket funeral and causing
emotional dis- tress to loved ones.317 Mainstream advertising and public awareness campaigns will be nec- essary if
we are to overcome the misunderstandings and outright myths that hamper organ donation
participation rates today. Congress and President Bush have just taken a solid step in this direction by promulgating the Or- gan Donation and
Recovery Improvement Act earlier this year.318 The leg- islation provides $5 million annually from 2005 through 2009 to fund pub- lic awareness efforts and to
study ways to increase recovery and donation rates.319 At the state level, a few pilot programs to spur organ donation have recently been enacted. Delaware, for
instance, has created an Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Trust Fund charged with developing donor eiwimsatt says... x grams, instituting educational
programs in high schools, and creating an awareness campaign for state employees. Florida followed suit by instituting an Organ and Tissue Donor Education and
Procurement Trust Fund that accepts voluntary donations of one dollar as part of the collection process for licensing taxes.321 The money is used to operate the
state’s organ certification program, maintain the organ and tissue donor registry, and educate the public regarding the need for organ and tissue donation.322
Ohio’s Second Chance Trust Fund is even broader in scope, as it accepts voluntary contributions that are used to 1) implement statewide public education programs
about organ, tissue, and eye donation, (2) in- crease awareness in high schools, (3) recognize donor families, (4) develop hospital training programs, and (5)
reimburse relevant parties for adminis- trative costs.323 Finally, New York proposed a bill which would amend its tax law, public health law, and the vehicle and
traffic law to establish a “Gift of Life” trust fund.324 Moreover, the media can dramatically increase organ donation simply by paying greater attention to the issue.
When Californian Nicholas Green was murdered in Italy, his family agreed to donate his organs, saving seven Italians in the process. In the following days, the donor
card signatory rate increased in Italy by 400%.325 Closer to home, when former NBA star Alonzo Mourning was forced to retire due to kidney failure, discussion
regarding the benefits and dire need for organ donation surged in Amer- ica.326 Sadly, it should not take a tragedy to spur organ donation participa- tion rates, but
it seems that tragedies make for the best fodder on the eve-ning news.
Amending the NOTA establishes a national database that facilitates paired organ
exchange
Morley 3
[Michael T., JD Yale Law School, “Increasing the Supply of Organs for Transplantation through Paired
Organ Exchanges”, Yale Law & Policy Review, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Winter, 2003), pp. 221-262]
B. Necessary Statutory and Regulatory Changes The best way of ensuring that a paired organ exchange system is
established would be to amend 42 U.S.C. § 274(b)(2)(A), the portion of the N ational O rgan T ransplant A ct
governing the OPTN registry of patients requiring organ transplants. This section currently states: The
Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network shall . . . establish in one location or through regional centers - (i) a
national list of individuals who need organs, and (ii) a national system, through the use of computers and in
accordance with established medical criteria, to match organs and individuals included in the list, especially individuals
whose immune system makes it difficult for them to receive organs. I propose that a new provision, 42 U.S.C. § 274(b)(2)(A)(iii) be
added:105 (iii) a database to facilitate paired organ exchanges. (I) For each patient on the waiting list specified
in 42 U.S.C. § 274(b)(2)(A)(i) who is in need of a nonvital organ, this database shall contain a list of persons who
are willing to donate such nonvital organ to that patient, but who are not compatible with that patient. For purposes of
this section, individuals included in this database shall be referred to as "potential donors." The list of donors willing to donate to
a particular patient shall be referred to as that patient's "database listing." (II) This database shall contain,
for each potential donor, contact information and such organ compatibility information as the Secretary [of
Health and Human Services] may deem necessary to identify cross-matches, including but not limited to the potential
donor's ABO blood type, MHC-compatibility information, height, weight, and age. (III) This database shall be
structured in such a way so as to facilitate the identification of cross-matches between patients on the
waiting list. For purposes of this section, a "cross-match" is defined as a group of two patients, where a potential donor in the database
listing for the first patient is biologically compatible with the second patient, and a potential donor in the database listing for the second patient
is biologically compatible with the first patient. The
Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, shall
promulgate minimum standards, subject to the approval of the Secretary, that must be met for a potential donor to be deemed
"biologically compatible" with a patient. (IV) A potential donor may at any time request that he be deleted from this database; neither having
one's information in the database nor identification in a cross-match shall constitute a binding agreement to donate an organ. (V) This database
shall be confined to potential donors for patients in need of kidneys, livers, and other nonvital organs which the Secretary determines may be
donated, in whole or in part, without impairing a major life function of the donor or jeopardizing his life or safety beyond the degree of risk
normally associated with a kidney-removal operation.106 (VI) Notwithstanding any other provision of federal law, paired organ exchanges as
described in this section are permissible. Donor participants
in a paired organ exchange do not receive "valuable
consideration" as that term is used in 42 U.S.C. § 274e. It shall be a violation of 42 U.S.C. § 274e to offer financial
compensation to a donor to participate in a paired organ exchange under this section, except that donors may receive
compensation for reasonable medical, travel, housing, and related expenses, and reimbursement for lost wages, associated with any stage(s) of
the paired organ exchange process (including preliminary medical testing).
Strict presumed consent empirically increases the organ supply
Glaser 5
[Sheri, J.D. candidate at Washington school of law, “Formula to Stop the Illegal Organ Trade: Presumed
Consent Laws and Mandatory Reporting Requirements for Doctors”, :
http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1311&context=hrbrief]
Approximately 15 to 20 NATIONS have enacted presumed consent laws for organ donation. These laws are
intended to produce a surplus of organs for transplant surgery, establish equity in the distribution of
organs, and end any illicit trade in organs. They essentially create situations where people must opt-out
of being an organ donor, rather than opt-in, as in the United States and other countries. These laws vary in terms of
their strength. For example, many of the European laws are weaker, meaning they have easy opt-out provisions. In France the family is given an
opportunity to stop the donation, even if the deceased expressed his or her desire to be an organ donor. Where
the system of
presumed consent is weak, it does not increase organ supply to the point of meeting demand. Instead,
those systems operate like the opt-in system in the United States because people who would have chosen to remain a
non- organ-donor in the United States may stop a family member’s donation and opt themselves out of being organ donors. Such systems
do not effectively increase the supply of organs. In contrast, Brazil’s Presumed Organ Donor Law is an example of a strict presumed consent law, where it is more difficult to opt-out. The law defines all Brazilian adults as
universal organ donors unless they officially declare themselves “non-donors of organs and tissues.” In order to opt-out, citizens
must have “non- donor of organs and tissues” permanently stamped on their civil identity card or
driver’s license. Citizens must pay for their docu- mentation, which presents an economic hardship and thus a major hurdle for many in
Brazil. Additionally, citizens must navigate var- ious bureaucratic obstacles in order to opt-out. For example,
authorities reportedly told Maria Celestina de Oliveira Pinto, a domestic worker in Sao Paulo, that she was not allowed to declare herself a nondonor when she went to get her new documents. She reportedly had to wait in line four times and argue before she received a “non” before
the word “donor” on her card. Though
strict presumed consent laws effectively increase supply,
they may create unfair
hardships on those individuals who wish to opt-out. States that pass strict presumed consent laws should make the process by which citizens
opt-out free of charge and simpler than Brazil’s system. Impact of Presumed Consent Laws
Presumed consent, when the state
strictly follows it, is the best- practice method of legally obtaining organs. In countries with presumed consent laws, there is a higher procurement rate for organs than in countries without these laws.
Many argue that
if the demand for organs were met legally, then people would have less incentive to
illegally obtain organs and the black market would eventually diminish . On a more basic level, if there were
more organs available for transplant, then more people’s lives would be saved. In addition, presumed
consent leads to improvements in tissue matching between donor organs and recipients, and it allows
surgeons to be more particular about which organs are selected. Furthermore, these laws allow for more
careful application of brain-death criteria because the increased supply of donor organs diminishes
incentive to obtain organs through “inappropriate” means. For example, there have been cases in Russia and Argentina
where organs were removed from comatose patients who were pre- maturely declared brain-dead. Presumed consent also ensures
that organs are “fresher” because it eliminates the doctor’s need to con- tact the deceased’s next of kin,
thus shortening the time between death and determination of consent. Lastly, the decision as to whether or not to
donate organs is not made during the grieving period immediately following someone’s death. Financially, presumed consent lowers
costs on the part of the government. For example, in the United States, with a federally funded dialysis program, the cost of a
kidney transplant, taking into account the cost per year after the transplant for further medical care, is less than the yearly cost of dialysis. One
could reasonably argue that, as kidney transplants become even more commonplace, the costs will continue to fall. If
a nation has a
system of presumed consent and has more organs available for transplants, then that nation will
presumably be performing more transplants and will have fewer patients on dialysis, thus lowering
government costs. Critics argue that presumed consent will result in a situation where only advantaged
groups, such as the wealthy and educated, will exercise their choice to opt-out because groups such as the poor and
uneducated will not be aware of their opportunity to exercise autonomy. One solution could be to promote public edu-
cation about presumed consent laws and the opportunity to opt- out. This would ensure that the next of kin knows
that the donor made an informed decision to donate while he or she was alive, and that donors’ overall autonomy will be respected. There is
also the fear that a doctor will remove the organs of someone who has opted-out, thus violating the deceased’s wishes. While this would be a
serious violation of donor autonomy, this is much more likely to occur in situations where a nation has imposed a system of strict presumed
consent that does not require doctors to make a reasonable search to determine whether an indi- vidual has opted-out of the system. In order
to avoid this scenario, nations should require doctors to verify whether or not patients have opted-out prior to removing any of their organs.
Case
Size of the waiting list is grossly exaggerated
Segev & Gentry 10
[D.L., Associate Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins and Somer, Associate Professor of Mathematics at
US Naval Academy, “Terminology Influences Many Aspects of the Market/Incentives Debate”, American
Journal of Transplantation Volume 10, Issue 10, page 2375, October 2010]
In seeking more precise terminology, we wish to clarify two other terms critical to this debate. Carefully examining the kidney
waiting list reveals that the ‘tremendous organ shortage’ is widely distorted, with totals on the waiting
list inflated by inactive candidates who are not eligible for a transplant (approximately one-third of the list). For
example, between 2002 and 2007, McCullough and colleagues showed that the active kidney waiting list
grew by only 10%, indicating a near steady-state of new eligible registrants and transplants for them, while the inactive kidney
waiting list grew by 282% (2). Furthermore, live donation rates are often said to have ‘stalled’ since 2004.
However, living donation rates tripled in the preceding 15 years (3). The level donation rates since 2004
suggest sustainability of these historic highs in donation. Some areas of living donation have seen exponential growth in
the last few years. Nondirected donation grew from 2 in 1998 to 56 in 2002 to 137 in 2009 (4,5). Paired donation grew from 3 in 2000 to 39 in
2004 to 419 in 2009 (5,6). These donors do not comprise a large proportion of the living donor pool at this early stage and so do not contribute
to a visible overall rise in kidney donation. As they continue to increase, however, these sources of donors will likely play a more obvious role in
the future. In fact, the rise in living donation between 2008 and 2009 is partly attributable to these novel modalities.
Magnitude first---normal statistical estimates of probability break down for
catastrophic risks because we can’t afford to be wrong even once---arguments about
uncertain probability just prove that a precautionary approach is key
Mark Jablonowski 10, Lecturer in Economics at the University of Hartford, “Implications of Fuzziness
for the Practical Management of High-Stakes Risks,” International Journal of Computational Intelligence
Systems, Vol.3, No. 1 (April, 2010), 1-7,
“Danger”
is an inherently fuzzy concept. Considerable knowledge imperfections surround both the
probability of high-stakes exposures, and the assessment of their acceptability. This is due to the complex and
dynamic nature of risk in the modern world. ¶ Fuzzy thresholds for danger are most effectively established
based on natural risk standards. This means that risk levels are acceptable only to the degree they blend
with natural background levels. This concept reflects an evolutionary process that has supported life on this planet for thousands of
years. By adhering to these levels, we can help assure ourselves of thousands more. While the level of such risks is yet to be
determined, observation suggest that the degree of human-made risk we routinely subject ourselves
to is several orders of magnitude higher. ¶ Due to the fuzzy nature of risk , we can not rely on
statistical techniques. The fundamental problem with catastrophe remains, in the long run, there may
be no long run . That is, we can not rely on results “averaging out” over time. With such risks, only
precautionary avoidance (based on the minimax’ing of the largest possible loss ) makes sense. Combined
with reasonable natural thresholds, this view allows a very workable approach to achieving safe progress.
Even slight risks of catastrophic impacts outweigh
Rescher 83 Nicholas, Department of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, Risk: A Philosophical
Introduction to the theory of risk evaluation, p. 67
In such situations we are dealing with hazards that are just not in the same league. Certain
hazards are simply unacceptable because
they involve a relatively unacceptable threat —things may go wrong so badly that, relative to the alternatives,
it’s just not worthwhile to “run the risk,” even in the face of a favorable balance of probabilities. The
rational man is not willing to trade off against one another by juggling probabilities such outcomes as the loss of one hair and the loss of his health or his freedom.
The imbalance or disparity between risks is just too great to be restored by probablistic readjustments. They are (probablistically) incommersuable:
confronted with such “incomparable” hazards, we do not bother to weigh this “balance of probabilities”
at all, but simply dismiss one alternative as involving risks that are, in the circumstances, “ unacceptable ”.
Magnitude o/w probability- they suffer from bias
Bostrom 11 Nick Bostrom, Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy & Oxford Martin School, Director of
the Future of Humanity Institute, and Director of the Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology
at the University of Oxford, recipient of the 2009 Eugene R. Gannon Award for the Continued Pursuit of
Human Advancement, holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the London School of Economics, 2011 “The
Concept of Existential Risk,” Draft of a Paper published on ExistentialRisk.com, Available Online at
http://www.existentialrisk.com/concept.html
Many kinds of
cognitive bias and other psychological phenomena impede efforts at thinking clearly and
dealing effectively with existential risk.[32] For example, use of the availability heuristic may create a “goodstory bias” whereby people evaluate the plausibility of existential-risk scenarios on the basis of
experience, or on how easily the various possibilities spring to mind. Since nobody has any real
experience with existential catastrophe, expectations may be formed instead on the basis of fictional
evidence derived from movies and novels. Such fictional exposures are systematically biased in favor of scenarios that make for
entertaining stories. Plotlines may feature a small band of human protagonists successfully repelling an alien invasion or a robot army. A story in which humankind
goes extinct suddenly—without warning and without being replaced by some other interesting beings—is less likely to succeed at the box office (although more
likely to happen in reality).
Their cognitive bias argument is the opposite---we under-estimate extinction risks.
Bostrom 12 Nick Bostrom is the director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford. Interview by,
ROSS ANDERSEN, an Atlantic correspondent based in Washington, D.C. “We're Underestimating the Risk
of Human Extinction,” 3-6-12, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/wereunderestimating-the-risk-of-human-extinction/253821/ DOA: 9-25-13, y2k
Unthinkable as it may be,
humanity , every last person, could someday be wiped from the
face of the
Earth . We have learned to worry about asteroids and supervolcanoes,
but the more-likely scenario, according to Nick Bostrom, a professor of philosophy at Oxford, is that we humans will destroy ourselves. Bostrom, who directs Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, has argued over the course of
several papers that human
extinction risks are poorly understood and, worse still, severely underestimated by society . Some of these
existential risks are fairly well known, especially the natural ones. But others are obscure or even exotic. Most worrying to Bostrom is the subset of existential risks that arise from human technology, a subset that he expects to
grow in number and potency over the next century. Despite his concerns about the risks posed to humans by technological progress, Bostrom is no luddite. In fact, he is a longtime advocate of transhumanism---the effort to
improve the human condition, and even human nature itself, through technological means. In the long run he sees technology as a bridge, a bridge we humans must cross with great care, in order to reach new and better modes of
being. In his work, Bostrom uses the tools of philosophy and mathematics, in particular probability theory, to try and determine how we as a species might achieve this safe passage. What follows is my conversation with Bostrom
about some of the most interesting and worrying existential risks that humanity might encounter in the decades and centuries to come, and about what we can do to make sure we outlast them. Some have argued that we ought
to be directing our resources toward humanity's existing problems, rather than future existential risks, because many of the latter are highly improbable. You have responded by suggesting that existential risk mitigation may in fact
suppose you have a moral view that counts future
people as being worth as much as present people. You might say that fundamentally it doesn't matter whether someone exists at the current time or at some future time,
be a dominant moral priority over the alleviation of present suffering. Can you explain why ? Bostrom: Well
just as many people think that from a fundamental moral point of view, it doesn't matter where somebody is spatially---somebody isn't automatically worth less because you move them to the moon or to Africa or something.
A human life is a human life . If you have that moral point of view that future generations matter in proportion to
their population numbers, then
than
pretty much
you get this very stark implication that existential risk mitigation has a much higher utility
anything else that you could do . There are so many people that could come into existence in the future if humanity survives this critical period of time---we might
live for billions of years, our descendants might colonize billions of solar systems, and there could be billions and billions times more people than exist currently. Therefore,
even a very small
reduction in the probability of realizing this enormous good will tend to outweigh even immense benefits like
eliminating poverty or curing malaria, which would be tremendous under ordinary standards. In the short term you don't seem especially worried about existential risks that originate in nature like asteroid strikes, supervolcanoes
and so forth. Instead you have argued that the majority of future existential risks to humanity are anthropogenic, meaning that they arise from human activity. Nuclear war springs to mind as an obvious example of this kind of risk,
but that's been with us for some time now. What are some of the more futuristic or counterintuitive ways that we might bring about our own extinction? Bostrom: I think the biggest existential risks relate to certain future
technological capabilities that we might develop, perhaps later this century. For example, machine intelligence or advanced molecular nanotechnology could lead to the development of certain kinds of weapons systems. You could
also have risks associated with certain advancements in synthetic biology. Of course there are also existential risks that are not extinction risks. The concept of an existential risk certainly includes extinction, but it also includes risks
that could permanently destroy our potential for desirable human development. One could imagine certain scenarios where there might be a permanent global totalitarian dystopia. Once again that's related to the possibility of the
development of technologies that could make it a lot easier for oppressive regimes to weed out dissidents or to perform surveillance on their populations, so that you could have a permanently stable tyranny, rather than the ones
we have seen throughout history, which have eventually been overthrown. And why shouldn't we be as worried about natural existential risks in the short term? Bostrom: One way of making that argument is to say that we've
survived for over 100 thousand years, so it seems prima facie unlikely that any natural existential risks would do us in here in the short term, in the next hundred years for instance. Whereas, by contrast we are going to introduce
entirely new risk factors in this century through our technological innovations and we don't have any track record of surviving those. Now another way of arriving at this is to look at these particular risks from nature and to notice
that the probability of them occurring is small. For instance we can estimate asteroid risks by looking at the distribution of craters that we find on Earth or on the moon in order to give us an idea of how frequent impacts of certain
magnitudes are, and they seem to indicate that the risk there is quite small. We can also study asteroids through telescopes and see if any are on a collision course with Earth, and so far we haven't found any large asteroids on a
collision course with Earth and we have looked at the majority of the big ones already. You have argued that
observation selection effect. Can you explain a bit more about that? Bostrom:
we underrate existential risks because of a particular kind of bias called
The idea of an observation selection effect is maybe best explained by
considering the simpler concept of a selection effect. Let's say you're trying to estimate how large the largest fish in a
given pond is, and you use a net to catch a hundred fish and the biggest fish you find is three inches long.
You might be tempted to infer that the biggest fish in this pond is not much bigger than three inches, because
you've caught a hundred of them and none of them are bigger than three inches. But if it turns out that your net could only catch fish up to a certain
first
length, then the measuring instrument that you used would introduce a selection effect : it would only
select from a subset of the domain you were trying to sample.
Now
that's a kind of standard fact of statistics,
and there are methods for trying to correct for it and you obviously have to take that into account when considering the fish distribution in your pond. An
observation selection effect is a selection effect introduced not by limitations in our measurement
instrument, but rather by the fact that all observations require the existence of an observer . This becomes important, for instance, in evolutionary
biology. For instance, we know that intelligent life evolved on Earth. Naively, one might think that this piece of evidence suggests that life is likely to evolve on most Earth-like planets. But that would be to overlook an observation
For no matter how small the proportion of all Earth-like planets that evolve intelligent life, we
will find ourselves on a planet that did. Our data point-that intelligent life arose on our planet-is predicted equally well by the hypothesis that intelligent life is very improbable even on
selection effect.
Earth-like planets as by the hypothesis that intelligent life is highly probable on Earth-like planets.
When it comes to human extinction and existential risk,
there are certain controversial ways that observation selection effects might be relevant.
How so? Bostrom: Well,
one principle for how to reason when there are these observation selection effects is called the self-sampling assumption, which says roughly that you should think of yourself as if you were a randomly selected observer of some
larger reference class of observers. This assumption has a particular application to thinking about the future through the doomsday argument, which attempts to show that we have systematically underestimated the probability
that the human species will perish relatively soon. The basic idea involves comparing two different hypotheses about how long the human species will last in terms of how many total people have existed and will come to exist. You
could for instance have two hypothesis: to pick an easy example imagine that one hypothesis is that a total of 200 billion humans will have ever existed at the end of time, and the other hypothesis is that 200 trillion humans will
have ever existed. Let's say that initially you think that each of these hypotheses is equally likely, you then have to take into account the self-sampling assumption and your own birth rank, your position in the sequence of people
We estimate currently that there have, to date, been 100 billion humans. Taking that into account,
you then get a probability shift in favor of the smaller hypothesis, the hypothesis that only 200 billion
humans will ever have existed. That's because you have to reason that if you are a random sample of all the people who will ever have existed, the chance that you will come up with a
who have lived and who will ever live.
birth rank of 100 billion is much larger if there are only 200 billion in total than if there are 200 trillion in total. If there are going to be 200 billion total human beings, then as the 100 billionth of those human beings, I am
But if there are going to be 200 trillion people eventually, then you might think
that it's sort of surprising that you're among the earliest 0.05% of the people who will ever exist. So you can see how
somewhere in the middle, which is not so surprising.
reasoning with an observation selection effect can have these surprising and counterintuitive results. Now I want to emphasize that I'm not at all sure this kind of argument is valid; there are some deep methodological questions
about this argument that haven't been resolved, questions that I have written a lot about. See I had understood observation selection effects in this context to work somewhat differently. I had thought that it had more to do with
trying to observe the kinds of events that might cause extinction level events, things that by their nature would not be the sort of things that you could have observed before, because you'd cease to exist after the initial
observation. Is there a line of thinking to that effect? Bostrom: Well, there's another line of thinking that's very similar to what you're describing that speaks to how much weight we should give to our track record of survival.
Human beings have been around for roughly a hundred thousand years on this planet, so how much should that count in determining whether we're going to be around another hundred thousand years? Now there are a number
of different factors that come into that discussion, the most important of which is whether there are going to be new kinds of risks that haven't existed to this point in human history---in particular risks of our own making, new
technologies that we might develop this century, those that might give us the means to create new kinds of weapons or new kinds of accidents. The fact that we've been around for a hundred thousand years wouldn't give us much
confidence with respect to those risks. But, to the extent that one were focusing on risks from nature, from asteroid attacks or risks from say vacuum decay in space itself, or something like that, one might ask what we can infer
from this long track record of survival. And one might think that any species anywhere will think of themselves as having survived up to the current time because of this observation selection effect. You don't observe yourself after
you've gone extinct, and so that complicates the analysis for certain kinds of risks. A few years ago I wrote a paper together with a physicist at MIT named Max Tegmark, where we looked at particular risks like vacuum decay, which
is this hypothetical phenomena where space decays into a lower energy state, which would then cause this bubble propagating at the speed of light that would destroy all structures in its path, and would cause a catastrophe that
no observer could ever see because it would come at you at the speed of light, without warning. We were noting that it's somewhat problematic to apply our observations to develop a probability for something like that, given this
observation selection effect. But we found an indirect way of looking at evidence having to do with the formation date of our planet, and comparing it to the formation date of other earthlike planets and then using that as a kind of
indirect way of putting a bound on that kind of risk. So that's another way in which observation selection effects become important when you're trying to estimate the odds of humanity having a long future. One possible strategic
response to human-created risks is the slowing or halting of our technological evolution, but you have been a critic of that view, arguing that the permanent failure to develop advanced technology would itself constitute an
existential risk. Why is that? Bostrom: Well, again I think the definition of an existential risk goes beyond just extinction, in that it also includes the permanent destruction of our potential for desirable future development. Our
permanent failure to develop the sort of technologies that would fundamentally improve the quality of human life would count as an existential catastrophe. I think there are vastly better ways of being than we humans can
currently reach and experience. We have fundamental biological limitations, which limit the kinds of values that we can instantiate in our life---our lifespans are limited, our cognitive abilities are limited, our emotional constitution
is such that even under very good conditions we might not be completely happy. And even at the more mundane level, the world today contains a lot of avoidable misery and suffering and poverty and disease, and I think the world
could be a lot better, both in the transhuman way, but also in this more economic way. The failure to ever realize those much better modes of being would count as an existential risk if it were permanent. Another reason I haven't
emphasized or advocated the retardation of technological progress as a means of mitigating existential risk is that it's a very hard lever to pull. There are so many strong forces pushing for scientific and technological progress in so
many different domains---there are economic pressures, there is curiosity, there are all kinds of institutions and individuals that are invested in technology, so shutting it down is a very hard thing to do. What technology, or
potential technology, worries you the most? Bostrom: Well, I can mention a few. In the nearer term I think various developments in biotechnology and synthetic biology are quite disconcerting. We are gaining the ability to create
designer pathogens and there are these blueprints of various disease organisms that are in the public domain---you can download the gene sequence for smallpox or the 1918 flu virus from the Internet. So far the ordinary person
will only have a digital representation of it on their computer screen, but we're also developing better and better DNA synthesis machines, which are machines that can take one of these digital blueprints as an input, and then print
out the actual RNA string or DNA string. Soon they will become powerful enough that they can actually print out these kinds of viruses. So already there you have a kind of predictable risk, and then once you can start modifying
these organisms in certain kinds of ways, there is a whole additional frontier of danger that you can foresee. In the longer run, I think artificial intelligence---once it gains human and then superhuman capabilities---will present us
with a major risk area. There are also different kinds of population control that worry me, things like surveillance and psychological manipulation pharmaceuticals. In one of your papers on this topic you note that
experts have estimated our total existential risk for this century to be somewhere around 10-20%. I know I can't be alone in thinking that is high.
What's driving that? Bostrom: I think
what's driving it is the sense that humans are developing these very potent
capabilities ---we are doing unprecedented things, and there is a risk that something could go wrong. Even with nuclear weapons , if you
rewind the tape you notice that it turned out that in order to make a nuclear weapon you had to have
these very rare raw materials like highly enriched uranium or plutonium, which are very difficult to get. But
suppose it had turned out that there was some technological technique that allowed you to make a
nuclear weapon by baking sand in a microwave oven or something like that. If it had turned out that way
then where would we be now? Presumably once that discovery had been made civilization would have
been doomed. Each time we make one of these new discoveries we are putting our hand into a big urn of balls and pulling up a new ball---so far we've pulled up white balls and grey balls, but maybe next time we
will pull out a black ball, a discovery that spells disaster. At the moment we have no good way of putting the ball back into the urn if we don't like it. Once a discovery has been published there is no way of un-publishing it.
Even with nuclear weapons there were close calls . According to some people we came quite close to all out nuclear war and that was only in the first few decades of
having discovered the new technology, and again it's a technology that only a few large states had, and that requires a lot of resources to control---individuals can't really have a nuclear arsenal.
Preventing nuclear war is the prerequisite to solving systemic impacts
Folk 78 Folk, Prof of Religious and Peace Studies at Bethany College, Jerry, “Peace Educations – Peace
Studies: Towards an Integrated Approach,” Peace & Change, Vol. V, No. 1, spring, P. 58
Those proponents of the positive peace approach who reject out of hand the work of researchers and educators coming to the field from
the perspective of negative peace
too easily forget that the prevention of a nuclear confrontation of global
dimensions is the prerequisite for all other peace research, education, and action. Unless such a
confrontation can be avoided there will be no world left in which to build positive peace. Moreover, the
blanket condemnation of all such negative peace oriented research, education or action as a reactionary
attempt to support and reinforce the status quo is doctrinaire.
Conflict theory and resolution, disarmament studies, studies of
the international system and of international organizations, and integration studies are in themselves neutral. They do not intrinsically support either the status quo
or revolutionary efforts to change or overthrow it. Rather they offer a body of knowledge which can be used for either purpose or for some purpose in between. It
is much more logical for those who understand peace as positive peace to integrate this knowledge into their own framework and to utilize it in achieving their own
purposes. A balanced peace studies program should therefore offer the student exposure to the questions and concerns which occupy those who view the field
essentially from the point of view of negative peace.
We have to weigh consequences with the risk of extinction.
Bok 88 Sissela Bok, Professor of Philosophy, Brandeis, Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory, Ed. David
Rosenthal and Fudlou Shehadi, 1988
The same argument can be made for Kant's other formulations of the Categorical Imperative: "So act as to use humanity, both in your own person and in the person
of every other, always at the same time as an end, never simply as a means"; and "So act as if you were always through actions a law-making member in a universal
Kingdom of Ends." No
one with a concern for humanity could consistently will to risk eliminating humanity in the person of
the sake of justice. To risk their collective death for the
sake of following one's conscience would be, as Rawls said, "irrational, crazy." And to say that one did not intend such a catastrophe,
but that one merely failed to stop other persons from bringing it about would be beside the point when the
end of the world was stake, For although it is true that we cannot be held responsible for most of the wrongs that others commit, the Latin maxim
presents a case where we would have to take such a responsibility seriously - perhaps to the point of deceiving,
bribing, even killing an innocent person, in order that the world not perish.
himself and every other or to risk the death of all members in a universal Kingdom of Ends for
2NC
CP
Multiple countries prove strict presumed consent is successful
Calandrillo 4
[Steve, Associate Professor of Law at Washington School of Law, “CASH FOR KIDNEYS? UTILIZING
INCENTIVES TO END AMERICA’S ORGAN SHORTAGE”, George Mason Law Review, Vol. 13, pp. 69-133,
2004]
Despite the fact that checking the organ donor box on one’s driver’s license seems easy, many academics have detailed the psychological barriers that prevent individuals or their families from consenting to donation at the time of their death.285 It
is reasonable to suspect
that switching to an opt-out system in the U.S. would lead to far higher organ donor participa- tion rates
than those currently realized. In fact, consistent with this underly- ing hypothesis, data indicate that such policies are
effective at increasing the rate of organ procurement from eligible individuals.286 In fact, many European nations,
including Austria, Denmark, France, Poland and Switzerland, utilize a presumed consent system in which the
decedent’s organs can be removed regardless of her family’s wishes unless the deceased had expressly opted out.287 A more mild system is
employed by Finland, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, where the dece- dent’s family can prevent organ removal by exercising their
right to object to it after their loved one’s death.288 An
interesting hybrid regime exists in Singapore, where citizens
are assumed to consent to donation, unless they are members of certain religious groups, including
Islam.289 This type of balanced system incorporates both public consensus in favor of donation, while
respecting the beliefs of groups which would likely opt out if given the choice. Despite the thousands of lives that would
be saved, the most signifi- cant obstacle to enacting a presumed consent system in the U.S. is our strong tradition of individual freedom and
autonomy 290 Presuming that an individual has agreed to donate her organs runs afoul of many people’s core beliefs in liberty and freedom
from government interference. We would be forced to incur the risk that some individuals would have their organs har- vested who otherwise
would have exercised their right to refuse if they knew they could have. Even with stringent safeguards to protect these indi- viduals, it would
be difficult to completely eliminate the risk that some- one’s autonomy would be violated. However, a
few states have enacted
extremely limited forms of pre- sumed consent legislation, including statutes that allow coroners to remove a decedent’s
corneas absent an objection from their family, or after fair inquiry to ascertain whether such an objection exists.291 These laws have
largely survived constitutional due process and takings clause challenges.292 However, any effort to expand the
notion of presumed consent to allow for the harvesting of all suitable organs at death would likely meet stiff politi- cal and constitutional
resistance.293 As a practical matter, it will be chal- lenging to overcome our traditional emphasis on freedom and voluntary action to muster
the political will to promulgate broad-ranging presumed consent legislation. But, by juxtaposing the decision regarding presumed consent
legislation against the inevitable lives that will be lost without it, perhaps some reasonable minds can be influenced in its favor.
Organ donation is wildly popular
Calandrillo 4
[Steve, Associate Professor of Law at Washington School of Law, “CASH FOR KIDNEYS? UTILIZING
INCENTIVES TO END AMERICA’S ORGAN SHORTAGE”, George Mason Law Review, Vol. 13, pp. 69-133,
2004]
3. Presumed Consent
Public opinion surveys consistently demonstrate overwhelming sup- port for organ
donation, on the order of 80% or more. 281 At the same time, less than three out of every ten people has signed up to become
a donor.282 This paradox is hard to swallow if you are one of the seventeen Americans who will die today because no organ was found in
time.283 Each
death high- lights the reality that America’s organ shortage is not due to a lack of potentially life-saving organs, but rather, the fact that the vast majority of them are taken to the grave with
their owner. One method of correcting this tragic disparity is to presume that all in- dividuals consent to
have their organs donated upon death unless they have expressly opted out during their lifetime—an opt-out
rather than an opt-in system.284
Doing so would take advantage of the strong public consensus in favor of
donation , while simultaneously overcoming the minimal barriers there are to having to affirmatively sign up to become an organ donor today.
Organ donation is popular but organ sales isn’t
Varjavand 13
[Reza, associate professor of economics and finance at Saint Xavier University, “Legalized Market for
Human Kidneys: A Wrong Solution to a Right Problem”, Journal of Management Policy and Practice, Vol.
14, Iss. 4, pp. 91 – 102]
Instituting a legalized market is an effective and appropriate approach to alleviating the shortage of human
kidneys. A good majority, 56%, disagrees simply because they believe that alternative non-market
schemes, such as prevention and education not only help us to deal more effectively with the shortage
problem, they also preserve the character and the human aspects of donating a kidney. In light of their responses to the first question, it
seems that buying or selling a kidney in a legalized market is a good idea out of necessity not choice. It is not considered necessarily the most
effective approach to tackle the shortage problem.
Means the perm links
K
The neoliberal project makes extinction inevitable – the environmental byproducts of
neoliberalism create gaps in ecosystem services, creating multiple, mutually
reinforcing feedback effects – causes climate change, resource collapse, disease
spread, and biodiversity collapse
Ehrenfeld ‘5,
(David, Dept. of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources @ Rutgers University, “The Environmental Limits to Globalization”, Conservation
Biology Vol. 19 No. 2 April 2005)
The known
effects of globalization on the environment are numerous and highly significant. Many others are
globalization, as we see it now,
remain a permanent state of affairs (Rees 2002; Ehrenfeld 2003a)? The principal environmental side effects of
globalization—climate change, resource exhaustion (particularly cheap energy), damage to agroecosystems,
and the spread of exotic species, including pathogens (plant, animal, and human)—are sufficient to make this
economic system unstable and short-lived. The socioeconomic consequences of globalization are likely to do
the same. In my book The Arrogance of Humanism (1981), I claimed that our ability to manage global systems, which
depends on our being able to predict the results of the things we do, or even to understand the systems we have
created, has been greatly exaggerated. Much of our alleged control is science fiction; it doesn’t work because of theoretical
undoubtedly unknown. Given these circumstances, the first question that suggests itself is: Will
limits that we ignore at our peril. We live in a dream world in which reality testing is something we must never, never do, lest we awake. In
1984 Charles Perrow explored the reasons why we have trouble predicting what so many of our own created systems will do, and why they
surprise us so unpleasantly while we think we are managing them. In his book Normal Accidents, which does not concern globalization, he
listed the critical characteristics of some of today’s complex
systems. They are highly interlinked, so a change in one
part can affect many others, even those that seem quite distant. Results of some processes feed back on
themselves in unexpected ways. The controls of the system often interact with each other unpredictably.
We have only indirect ways of finding out what is happening inside the system. And we have an incomplete
understanding of some of the system’s processes. His example of such a system is a nuclear power plant, and this, he explained, is why
system-wide accidents in nuclear plants cannot be predicted or eliminated by system design. I would argue that globalization
is a
similar system, also subject to catastrophic accidents, many of them environmental—events that we
cannot define until after they have occurred, and perhaps not even then. The comparatively few commentators
who have predicted the collapse of globalization have generally given social reasons to support their arguments. These deserve
some consideration here, if only because the environmental and social consequences of globalization interact so strongly with each
other. In 1998, the British political economist John Gray, giving scant attention to environmental factors, nevertheless came to the
conclusion that globalization is unstable and will be short-lived. He said, “There
is nothing in today’s global market that
buffers it against the social strains arising from highly uneven economic development within and
between the world’s diverse societies.” The result, Gray states, is that “The combination of [an] unceasing
stream of new technologies, unfettered market competition and weak or fractured social institutions” has
weakened both sovereign states and multinational corporations in their ability to control important events. Note that
Gray claims that not only nations but also multinational corporations, which are widely touted as controlling the world, are being
weakened by globalization. This idea may come as a surprise, considering the growth of multinationals in the past few decades, but I
believe it is true. Neither
governments nor giant corporations are even remotely capable of controlling the
environmental or social forces released by globalization, without first controlling globalization itself.
Two of the social critics of globalization with the most dire predictions about its doom are themselves masters of the process. The late Sir
James Goldsmith, billionaire financier, wrote in 1994, It must surely be a mistake to adopt an economic policy which makes you rich if you
eliminate your national workforce and transfer production abroad, and which bankrupts you if you continue to employ your own people....
It is the poor in the rich countries who will subsidize the rich in the poor countries. This will have a
serious impact on the social cohesion of nations. Another free-trade billionaire, George Soros, said much the same thing
in 1995: “The collapse of the global marketplace would be a traumatic event with unimaginable consequences. Yet I
find it easier to imagine than the continuation of the present regime.” How much more powerful these
statements are if we factor in the environment! As globalization collapses, what will happen to people, biodiversity, and ecosystems? With
respect to people, the gift of prophecy is not required to answer this question. What will happen depends on where you are and how you
live. Many citizens of the Third World are still comparatively self-sufficient; an unknown number of these will survive the breakdown of
globalization and its attendant chaos. In the developed world, there are also people with resources of self-sufficiency and a growing
understanding of the nature of our social and environmental problems, which may help them bridge the years of crisis. Some species are
adaptable; some are not. For the non- human residents of Earth, not all news will be bad. Who would have predicted that wild turkeys
(Meleagris gallopavo), one of the wiliest and most evasive of woodland birds, extinct in New Jersey 50 years ago, would now be found in
every county of this the most densely populated state, and even, occasionally, in adjacent Manhattan? Who would have predicted that
black bears (Ursus americanus), also virtually extinct in the state in the mid-twentieth century, would now number in the thousands
(Ehrenfeld 2001)? Of course these recoveries are unusual—rare
bright spots in a darker landscape. Finally, a few
ecological systems may survive in a comparatively undamaged state; most will be stressed to the breaking
point, directly or indirectly, by many environmental and social factors interacting unpredictably. Lady Luck, as always, will have much to
say. In his book The Collapse of Complex Societies, the archaeologist Joseph Tainter (1988) notes that collapse, which has happened to all
past empires, inevitably results in human systems of lower complexity and less specialization, less centralized control, lower economic
activity, less information flow, lower population levels, less trade, and less redistribution of resources. All of these changes are inimical to
globalization. This less-complex, less-globalized condition is probably what human societies will be like when the dust settles. I
do not
think, however, that we can make such specific predictions about the ultimate state of the environment
after globalization, because we have never experienced anything like this exceptionally rapid, global
environmental damage before. History and science have little to tell us in this situation. The end of the current economic
system and the transition to a postglobalized state is and will be accompanied by a desperate last raid
on resources and a chaotic flurry of environmental destruction whose results cannot possibly be told
in advance. All one can say is that the surviving species, ecosystems, and resources will be greatly impoverished compared with what
we have now, and our descendants will not thank us for having adopted, however briefly, an economic system that consumed their
inheritance and damaged their planet so wantonly. Environment
is a true bottom line—concern for its condition
must trump all purely economic growth strategies if both the developed and developing nations are
to survive and prosper. Awareness of the environmental limits that globalized industrial society denies or
ignores should not, however, bring us to an extreme position of environmental determinism. Those whose
preoccupations with modern civilization’s very real social problems cause them to reject or minimize the environmental constraints
discussed here ( Hollander 2003) are guilty of seeing only half the picture. Environmental scientists sometimes fall into the same error. It
is tempting to see the salvation of civilization and environment solely in terms of technological
improvements in efficiency of energy extraction and use, control of pollution, conservation of water, and regulation of
environmentally harmful activities. But such needed developments will not be sufficient—or may not even
occur— without corresponding social change, including an end to human population growth and the
glorification of consumption, along with the elimination of economic mechanisms that increase the
gap between rich and poor. The environmental and social problems inherent in globalization are completely
interrelated—any attempt to treat them as separate entities is unlikely to succeed in easing the transition to
a postglobalized world. Integrated change that combines environmental awareness, technological innovation, and an altered world
view is the only answer to the life-threatening problems exacerbated by globalization (Ehrenfeld 2003b). If
such integrated change occurs in time, it will likely happen partly by our own design and partly as an unplanned response to the constraints
imposed by social unrest, disease, and the economics of scarcity. With
respect to the planned component of change,
we are facing, as eloquently described by Rees (2002), “the ultimate challenge to human intelligence and selfawareness, those vital qualities we humans claim as uniquely our own. Homo sapiens will either. . .become fully human or wink out
ignominiously, a guttering candle in a violent storm of our own making.” If change does not come quickly, our global civilization will join
Tainter’s (1988) list as the latest and most dramatic example of collapsed complex societies. Is
there anything that could slow
globalization quickly, before it collapses disastrously of its own environmental and social weight? It is
still not too late to curtail the use of energy, reinvigorate local and regional communities while
restoring a culture of concern for each other, reduce nonessential global trade and especially global
finance (Daly & Cobb 1989), do more to control introductions of exotic species (including pathogens), and
accelerate the growth of sustainable agriculture. Many of the needed technologies are already in
place. It is true that some of the damage to our environment—species extinctions, loss of crop and domestic animal varieties, many
exotic species introductions, and some climatic change— will be beyond repair. Nevertheless, the opportunity to help our
society move past globalization in an orderly way, while there is time, is worth our most creative and
passionate efforts. The citizens of the United States and other nations have to understand that our global economic
system has placed both our environment and our society in peril, a peril as great as that posed by any
war of the twentieth century. This understanding, and the actions that follow, must come not only from enlightened
leadership, but also from grassroots consciousness raising. It is still possible to reclaim the planet from a
self-destructive economic system that is bringing us all down together, and this can be a task that bridges the
divide between conservatives and liberals. The crisis is here, now. What we have to do has become obvious.
Globalization can be scaled back to manageable proportions only in the context of an altered world
view that rejects materialism even as it restores a sense of communal obligation. In this way, alone, can we
achieve real homeland security, not just in the United States, but also in other nations, whose fates have become so thoroughly entwined
with ours within the global environment we share.
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-chosensimplicity-who-will-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 antidemocratic 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.
and the new movements of the 99%, the
There is another paradigm emerging
which is shared by Gandhi
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.
Their claims to political engagement through the legalization debate validates the
sovereign’s ability to draw lines and constitute appropriate political activity that
always forecloses change – only an approach focused on self-creation outside the
state allows true political engagement
Edkins and Pin-Fat 2005 (Jenny and Veronique, “Through the Wire: Relations of Power and
Relations of Violence” Millennium)
Conclusion We have traced how sovereign power, that form of rule that today pervades the globe,
produces bare life as the form of life under its sway. We have argued here that, despite appearances,
sovereign power is most productively considered not as a form of power relation but rather as a
relationship of violence. In that it seeks to refuse those whose lives it controls any politically valid
response, it operates as a form of technologised administration. A power relation is one that is
invariably accompanied by resistance: the subjects it produces are party to the relation, and their
resistance is a necessary component of what is happening. Sovereign power on the other hand, with its
production of bare life, not political subjects, attempts to rule out the possibility of resistance. A
properly political power relation is not practicable in those circumstances. What this tells us is that to
contest sovereign power we need something different. In challenging sovereign power we are not facing
a power relation but a relationship of violence, one that denies a political voice to the form of life it has
produced. Resistance such as would be possible from within a power relation, and indeed as an inherent
part of it, cannot take place. Other forms of opposition must be found, forms that seek to reinstate a
properly political relationship. Two strategies of contestation were suggested: a refusal to draw lines
and an assumption of bare life. First, the refusal. The drawing of lines between forms of life is the way in
which sovereign power produces bare life. That drawing of lines must be refused, wherever the lines are
drawn. Negotiating the precise location of the lines remains within the violence of sovereign power. A
refusal to draw any line between forms of life, on the other hand, takes away the ground upon which
sovereign power is constituted . Second, the assumption. When life is produced as bare life it is not
helpful for that life to demand its reinstatement as politically qualified life. To do so would be to
validate the very drawing of lines upon which sovereign power depends and which produces life as
bare life in the first place . An alternative strategy is the taking on or what we have called the
assumption of bare life. Through this strategy the subject at one and the same time both acknowledges
its status as nothing but life and demands recognition as such . It refuses the distinction between bare
life and politically qualified life. As is apparent, the two strategies are at heart the same. Both seek to
overturn the denial of politics that has taken place under biopolitics and to reinstate properly political
power relations, with their accompanying freedoms and potentialities. We have discussed an example of
what such contestation of sovereign power might look like. Practices that challenge or refuse sovereign
power are apparent in many locations: whether in hunger strikes or street demonstrations, creative
ways of provoking sovereign power and embroiling it into a political or power relation have been and
are being found, through the wire.
Oppressed groups will be forced to sell their organs and be reduced to bare life, where
their lives are an end in themselves
Gatarin 14 Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Philippines [Gina, “Masculine Bodies in
the Biocapitalist Era: Compromising Human Rights of Commercial Kidney Donors in the Philippines”,
Gender Technology and Development 2014 18: 107]
Human Rights as Shared Responsibility The existing norms of bioethics governing kidney donation in the Philippines
do not provide a platform on which human rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled. Bioethics is coopted by market regulations, which transform healthcare into a business through privatization and tourism. The
neoliberal ideology of the rational individual, which worships individual freedom, that is, doing whatever
one wants to one’s body, while disregarding the social and economic circumstances that affect the
decision to donate, cannot be a ground for the realization of human rights. This celebration of the
individual as the prime mover in the biocapitalist era by merely focusing on consent on paper as a
requirement for kidney donation shows how individualist the framing of human rights is. This is why
governments have to formulate fresh measures, since the existing anti-trafficking framework, at least in the
Philippines, does not offer social policies to protect the victims of organ trafficking (Yea, 2010). As long as the
framing of human rights is limited to representing the human being as a legal entity, while our physical
bodies and the environment in which we thrive are consigned to oblivion, corporeal integrity will
continue to be compromised. Upholding the right to a decent standard of living, as enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the 1987 Philippine Constitution,
require that bioethicists, health practitioners and government reframe the orientation on human rights
toward improving the quality of life of poor people. The absence of a roof that can protect them from
the harsh life in the city and the natural elements is denying them their humanity, and has been primarily the
reason why most breadwinners in Baseco engage in selling a kidney. Such a situation reproduces the
vicious status of bare life
(Agamben, 1998)—lives
which can anytime be devoured, without pity and worse, without
any possibilities for atonement. To render Kantian ethics here, human beings are never a means to do anything
but are ends in themselves. The stories of most male kidney sellers heading their households ground the human rights discourse in
the human experience of having to give up a precious organ, which nature has given to human beings so that they can function well, and be a
source of succor for others when used to extend somebody else’s life. Even the 2008 Istanbul Declaration is clear that transplant policies and
programs have the primary objective of “optimal short- and long-term medical care to promote the health of both donors and recipients”
(American Society of Nephrology, 2008, p. 1228). Technological
breakthroughs in medicine, which are supposed to help in
ironically contributed to becoming a
tool for waging thanatopolitics (politics of death) against this particular group of people. Foucault
characterizes this age as the “right of death and power over life” wherein bodies are considered as
machines whose capabilities can be optimized (1976, p. 139). As demonstrated by the social and economic circumstances that
influence the decisions of kidney sellers who participated in this research, it is essential to ensure that a systemic analysis
becomes a crucial element in guiding protocols on living, non-related donations. As Young (2006, p. 115) said, it is
saving the lives of patients with severe illnesses by connecting people’s existences, have
equally fitting to understand “how macro-social processes allow such exploitation in a variety of ways.” After all, as the rallying call of McGregor
(2001, p. 88) goes, “[h]ealth care needs to be restored to a level that achieves social justice and protects and enhances human life and dignity.”
1NR
Ptx
Sanctions push is top of the docket—no veto-proof majority now because of Obama
push-back—it’d tank the deal
Watkins, 1-5—Ali, WaPo (re-printed in HuffPo), “Republicans Return To Washington With Iran Talks In
Their Crosshairs,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/05/iran-congress-deal_n_6419674.html -BR
Republicans are returning to Washington this week with control over both houses of Congress, and they
have their sights set on one key Obama administration initiative: Iran. As the administration persists in
its efforts to reach an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program, lawmakers on both sides of the
aisle have made it clear that they're more skeptical of Tehran than the White House is. Many in
Congress see the administration as overly inclined to trust Iran, and have criticized the White House's
good-faith lifting of debilitating economic sanctions. But while the Democrat-led Senate was more
inclined to let pending sanctions legislation linger as a threat rather than passing it into law, the new
Republican majority isn't expected to be as understanding. According to Republican sources on Capitol
Hill, new Iran measures will be a top priority for the incoming majority. Chief among the proposals
being floated are a bipartisan measure from Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) that
threatens new sanctions if Iran violates any nuclear deal, as well as an additional proposal from Sens.
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and incoming Foreign Relations chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) that would
require lawmakers’ approval before the administration can move forward with any nuclear agreement.
“You will see a very vigorous Congress when it comes to Iran," Graham said in late December. "You will
see a Congress wanting to have any say about a final deal.” But passing or even threatening new
sanctions during the incredibly delicate talks would pit Capitol Hill starkly against the Obama
administration, which has long said that any aggression towards Tehran could derail the already
tentative hope for a deal. “We have long believed that Congress should not consider any new sanctions
while negotiations are underway, in order to give our negotiators the time and space they need to fully
test the current diplomatic opportunity,” said a senior administration official familiar with the
negotiation process. “New sanctions threaten the diplomatic process currently underway.” The White
House’s biggest headache would be for the new Congress to pass an Iran measure with a veto-proof
majority. That isn’t necessarily out of the realm of possibility, as Kirk pointed out on Fox News last
month. Given that a handful of powerful, returning Democrats signed onto the Menendez-Kirk bill early
last year, he may be right.
Sanctions push is ToD—only Obama holds off a veto-proof majority
POLITICO, 12-29—Burgess Everett, “GOP to move on Iran sanctions legislation,”
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/gop-senate-iran-sanctions-bill-113852.html#ixzz3NKQEhX91 –
BR
Congressional Republicans are setting up early challenges to President Barack Obama in January,
preparing to move forward quickly on new Iran sanctions legislation following on the heels of a vote on
a bill approving the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Republican-controlled Senate is expected to vote on
legislation that would impose additional economic penalties on Iran in the first few weeks of next year,
according to Republican senators and aides. The starting point would be a bill written a year ago by
Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) that managed to accrue the support of 60 senators
in both parties despite opposition from the White House. Kirk and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said
over the weekend that an Iran vote could occur in January after a vote on Keystone, which is the first bill
the Republican Senate will take up and is also opposed by President Barack Obama. Republican leaders
have not yet finalized their legislative schedule, but the bipartisan Iran proposal is supported by
incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and all of his leadership team. And taking a
confrontational stance toward Iran as diplomatic negotiations continue with a group of Western nations
appears to be top of mind for the new Senate Republican majority . “It’s an important issue, a priority,
and has wide bipartisan support in the Senate,” said McConnell spokesman Don Stewart on Monday.
The Republican House overwhelmingly passed a sanctions bill targeting Iran’s energy industry in 2013,
though that legislation was never taken up by the Senate. The Kirk-Menendez legislation would tighten
economic sanctions on Iran if the country walks away from ongoing negotiations over nuclear
enrichment or reneges on an interim agreement that has frozen some of Iran’s nuclear activities in
return for unwinding some sanctions. In November, Western and Iranians negotiators extended that
interim deal until July as they attempt to hammer out a permanent deal that would curtail Iran’s nuclear
ambitions and relax sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy and isolated the country globally. A
separate bill written by Graham and incoming Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)
would require Congress to approve of any final deal and could figure into the GOP’s plans next year.
“You will see a very vigorous Congress when it comes to Iran. You will see a Congress making sure that
sanctions are real and will be reimposed at the drop of a hat. You will see a Congress wanting to have
any say about a final deal,” Graham said at a weekend press conference with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu. A dozen returning Senate Democrats officially signed on in support of the KirkMenendez legislation in 2014, though President Barack Obama’s administration convinced other on-thefence members to hold off public support after warning that voting on that legislation could upset
ongoing negotiations. While the Kirk-Menendez legislation could very well accrue 60 votes to clear the
Senate in the new Congress, Democratic aides on Monday declined to estimate the level of enthusiasm
for fresh sanctions in the new year. Indeed, the largest challenge for both supporters of Iran sanctions
and the Keystone pipeline is building veto-proof levels of support in Congress that would require dozens
of Democrats in the House and Senate to oppose the White House. White House press secretary Josh
Earnest said in November that new penalties during negotiations would be “counterproductive.”
Garnering 67 votes in the Senate for the Kirk-Menendez bill could be a steep task, given the defeat of
several moderate Democratic supporters, opposition from Obama and lack of unanimous support in
the GOP. But Kirk said on Sunday in an interview with Fox news that he expects “really bipartisan votes”
and predicted having a “shot of even getting to a veto-proof majority in the Senate.”
Vote count
Richter, 12-6—Seattle Times, Pulitzer Prize winning publication, “New Iran sanctions? Congress may
hold off,” http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2025183129_congresssanctionsxml.html --BR
Congress’ passion for sanctions against Iran has united lawmakers of both parties and different political
perspectives. But many lawmakers seem to be having second thoughts about their vows to immediately
hit Iran with new economic penalties if Iran’s negotiators don’t agree to curb the nation’s nuclear
program in negotiations that reached a one-year deadline last week. Instead, it appears that additional
penalties probably will be delayed at least four months, which is the new deadline for the negotiations
between Iran and six world powers. Though many longtime lawmakers are eager for immediate
penalties, it appears they don’t have enough votes to override a threatened veto by President Obama.
Some lawmakers are worrying that new penalties could upend the long-running negotiations, sticking
the United States — and Congress in particular — with the blame. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., incoming
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he wants to figure out a way for Congress to
work with the Obama administration to make the diplomacy successful, rather than sink it. “I don’t think
anybody in Congress wants to feel, quote, responsible for this deal falling apart,” Corker said on the
“Charlie Rose” television program. In writing sanctions legislation, he said, “You realize that you’re, in
essence, to use a term, firing with real bullets.” Iran and the six powers — Britain, China, France,
Germany, Russia and the U.S. — have been seeking a deal that would ease sanctions on Iran if it agrees
to restrictions aimed at preventing it from gaining nuclear-weapons capability. It had been widely
expected that if the negotiations failed to yield a deal by the deadline, Congress would step in with new
sanctions on the theory that the penalties could force the Islamic Republic to give ground. But experts
and administration officials have argued that such a step could drive Iran away from the negotiating
table, or convince many nations that the United States, not Iran, is to blame if the talks fail. That could
undermine the current sanctions by encouraging oil-purchasing nations to increase purchases of Iranian
petroleum. Iran and the six world powers have agreed to a new deadline of March 24 to negotiate the
broad outlines of a deal. The final details of the deal are to be completed by the end of June. At a Senate
Foreign Relations Committee hearing Wednesday, two experts who have supported tough sanctions
urged committee members to hold off on new penalties. Gary Samore, a former top White House
nuclear adviser, told the committee the challenge is to devise legislation that would pressure Iran
“without giving the Iranians an excuse to renege on the joint plan of action and blame it on the United
States, which would jeopardize our ability to go back to a sanctions campaign.” Sen. Robert Menendez,
D-N.J., one of the leading sponsors of tough sanctions legislation, signaled at the hearing that he wants
to wait until the next negotiating deadline to see whether Iran resists a deal. If that happens,
“congressional action to authorize prospective sanctions may provide a leverage we need to prevent
Iran from becoming a nuclear-weapons state,” he said. Discussion in the committee is now about
"prospective sanctions should the deal not come together," a Senate aide said. Those penalties would
be "down the road," to be "phased in over a period of time — calibrated and measured." Elizabeth
Rosenberg, a former Treasury Department sanctions expert now with the Center for a New American
Security, said that "the lawmakers who want sanctions still want more sanctions. But they aren't a large
enough majority to pass legislation that could override a veto." She predicted, however, that pressure
for sanctions would grow sharply if Iran doesn't agree to a deal by the new deadlines.
Deal coming now but diplomacy is vital—defer to inside info
Jahn, 1-3—George, “Iran, U.S. Reportedly Closer To Nuclear Deal,” AP, HuffPo,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/03/iran-us-nuclear-deal_n_6410238.html --BR
Iran and the U.S. have tentatively agreed on a formula that Washington hopes will reduce Tehran's
ability to make nuclear arms by committing it to ship to Russia much of the material needed for such
weapons, diplomats say. In another sign of progress , the two diplomats told The Associated Press that
negotiators at the December round of nuclear talks drew up for the first time a catalog outlining areas
of potential accord and differing approaches to remaining disputes. The diplomats said differences still
dominate ahead of the next round of Iran-six power talks on Jan. 15 in Geneva. But they suggested that
even agreement to create a to-do list would have been difficult previously because of wide gaps
between the sides. The diplomats, who are familiar with the talks, spoke to the AP recently and
demanded anonymity because they weren't authorized to comment on the closed negotiations.
Massive backlash to organ sales- link alone turns case
Caplan, 7 -- NYU bioethics division head and professor
[Arthur, Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science from Columbia, Drs. William F and Virginia
Connolly Mitty Professor and head of the Division of Bioethics at New York University Langone Medical
Center in New York City, "Do No Harm: The Case Against Oran Sales from Living Persons," Living Donor
Transplantation, ed by Henkie Tan, p432-434, google books, accessed 8-27-14]
What little data exist show that health-care providers are opposed to markets (19). If they are not
willing to support markets out of moral reservations, then markets simply will not be effectively
implemented. Even more important than a patent lack of enthusiasm for markets among those who
would be expected to serve them, major religions and cultural views in the developed world will not
countenance a market in living body parts (20-22), Various Popes, for example, have made quite clear
the Catholic Church's aversion to markets in organs. Anglo-American law, ever since the days in which
markets in body parts resulted in graveyards being stripped to supply medical schools with teaching
materials, has not recognized any property interest in the human body and its organs (22). Alienating
religions and cultures which do not view the body as property would have a devastating impact on the
supply of organs available. Indeed, some sub-populations in the United States, particularly African
Americans, are as likely to be turned off by the institution of a market in body parts because of their
historical experiences with slavery and a keen distrust of medicine, as they are to be motivated to
become sellers to the rich (23-26). The argument that increasing the supply of organs through sales will
be efficient and cost- effective is not persuasive. It will take real and expensive resources to try to
regulate and police a market in organs. Since markets, even regulated ones, would shift the supply of
organs toward those who can afford to buy them, those who cannot might well withdraw from
participation in the deceased-donor organ system, thereby putting in peril any overall increase in the
pool of organs available to transplant. The case for kidney sales is not persuasive. Existing experience
with markets has been dismal. The notion that free choice supports the creation of markets in human
body parts does not square with the reality of what leads people to be likely to want to sell them. The
devastating moral cost to medicine of engaging in organ-brokering is far too great a price to pay for the
meager benefit in supply that might be had by those in need of transplants. The storm of opposition
that markets will trigger in many individuals based on religious or cultural objections may actually
produce a decrease rather than an increase in the overall pool of transplantable organs- an outcome
that by itself would make calls for the creation of markets dubious.
Obama still hasn’t even issued a veto threat
Dhlouhy, 1-2—Jennifer, “Keystone XL bill hits fast track on Senate,” Fuel Fix,
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/01/02/keystone-xl-bill-hits-fast-track-on-senate/ --BR
The Republicans’ swift maneuvering on the Keystone XL bill has been ordained since November, when
the then-Democratically controlled Senate narrowly rejected legislation that would authorize the $8
billion pipeline. Keystone supporters — including Republicans taking control of the chamber next week
— said they would try again in January, when they have more than enough votes to pass the legislation.
That could put Senate Republican leaders on a collision course with the White House. President Barack
Obama has stopped short of issuing a veto threat on the bill but has been critical of the perceived
benefits that would flow from the 1,170-mile pipeline linking Alberta with Steel City, Nebraska.
Keystone isn’t a fight, it’s easy—Obama can delay his decision until Congress acts
USA Today, 12-14—“Boehner, McConnell face big to-do list in next Congress,”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/12/14/boehner-mcconnell-gridlock-congressobama/20298617/ --BR
• Keystone XL pipeline: The House has already passed legislation to authorize construction of this
controversial oil pipeline — nine times. When the Senate took the bill up last month, supporters fell just
one vote short of the 60 needed to push it forward. It will sail through come January , when
Republicans take control of the Senate and have even bigger margins in the House. "It's one of the first
things the Republicans are going to do," said John Feehery, a former aide to House speaker Dennis
Hastert, R-Ill., and now a Washington consultant. " It's the easiest thing to get to the president's desk ."
The only question, he said, is whether President Obama will sign or veto the legislation.