Letters - Letter to the Editor

'Good and Moral Things'

Gilbert Meilaender ("'Strip-mining' the Dead," Oct. 11) objects to "proposals to strip-mine the dead" by allowing the sale of one's organs. I wonder, though, if capitalism is really so wrong in this instance.

In our current "altruistic" system of organ "donations," the donors are the only ones who don't make money. Everybody else does. Doctors and hospitals charge substantial sums for the services involved in transplanting. The nation's 63 federally approved organ-procurement organizations collect an average of $24,000 per organ or $70,000 per cadaver. We have no shortage of the other life necessities-food, clothing, shelter, and even medical care-because we pay people to provide them. If we were to rely on altruism for these, they too would become scarce.

Organ shortages would disappear overnight if people were permitted to sell their organs upon death, to include them as part of their estate with the proceeds going to the heirs. The benefits of a market system in organs would be manifold: Fewer patients would spend expensive and painful years on dialysis waiting for kidneys. There would be no need for rationing, as supply would rise to meet demand. Transplants would be performed as needed, so patients would not risk deterioration, or even death, while on a waiting list. Healthier patients getting transplants sooner would increase survival rates, and the increased frequency would enhance surgical skills and knowledge. These, all good and moral things.

Daniel John Sobieski

Chicago, Ill.

Gilbert Meilaender responds: The list of "good and moral things" we might try to accomplish never comes to an end. For just that reason, what we do is of greater moral significance than what we accomplish, and how we live matters more than how long. Selling bodily organs as commodities would help to create a society in which we ought not want to live-no matter for how long.

No-Good Treaties

Your wholly convincing critique of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty ("A Just Defeat," Nov. 8) refers to "those treaties that are truly effective." That may have been generous, for I have yet to recall such a multilateral treaty.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 "outlawing war" only encouraged utopian illusions. The 1930 London Naval Reduction Treaty limited British and U.S. tonnage, but didn't prevent Pearl Harbor. The League of Nations covenant didn't stop Mussolini or Hitler.

In the nuclear era, multilateral efforts have been singularly ineffective. Neither the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty nor the 1996 Test Ban Treaty stopped India and Pakistan from conducting nuclear tests. The recently signed land-mine treaty will not stop the laying of land mines.

History demonstrates that well-intended multilateral treaties are inherently flawed because they penalize law-abiding states and reward scofflaw or predatory regimes. Excessive confidence in such treaties is an escape from reality, and it downplays America's unilateral responsibility for peace and stability.

Ernest W. Lefever

Washington, D.C.

The Story of Ed

Conservatives just don't get it, as usual. All this criticism of Edmund Morris and his so-called biography of Ronald Reagan, Dutch, is free publicity for the book. The worst curse you could wish on Morris would have been to ignore him and Dutch-not give him nearly ten pages of your October 25 issue.

Robert D. Westgate

Washington, D.C.

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