My research question is about the legalization of financial compensation for living kidney donors in the United States to increase the amount of kidney donations. My dream job is becoming a pharmacist who can save human lives. Therefore, I wanted to relate my interest of medical field issues to the topic that I will research about, so I decided to research how the legalization of financial compensation for kidney donors would affect Americans. Some people would possibly argue that financial compensation for living kidney donors could ruin the moral value of the human body. However, the research question affects me personally because saving human lives is more important to me than breaking the moral values to sell body parts. 

Even though I knew the importance of organ donations, I have never donated nor received organs. However, I have indirect experience from when my father donated his blood to his uncle, who was injured in a motorcycle accident. My father's uncle could not undergo surgery until my father donated his blood because there was a lack of blood donations in the hospital. If my father was not living near the hospital and could not donate blood immediately, his uncle would not be alive. Hence, I experienced not only how the donation of organs is important to save people's lives, but also that the donation time is important. Based off of my interest in medical field, desire to save lives, and experience from my father, the research question makes me qualified to write about the legalization of financial compensation for living kidney donors to increase the amount of kidney donations in the United States. 


From one of the opposing articles, the author of the article claims that it is not a good idea to legalize financial compensation to people who donate their living kidneys. The main evidence of the article supports his claim because he states that the compensation does not guarantee the increase of kidney donations, and it also ruins religious beliefs. The major belief of Catholics could be threatened because they believe that the human body is a gift that was created by God. Catholics argue that no one has the right to decide whether they are going to sell their bodies or not. If religious people chose not to donate their organs because of their morals, it would lead to the possibility of a decrease in the amount of organ donations. Even though the author's view point is reasonable, his argument is not highly credible due to the fact that it relies more on his subjective opinion rather than supporting the argument with any statistical data and other research. Furthermore, this subjective point of view is somewhat biased because his conclusion did not consider counterarguments and was only based off of a single point of view (Caplan 1). 

The second source focuses on the author's claim that in order to increase the number of kidney donations in the United States, the government and the Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) should find ways to compensate living kidney donors by developing a proper system. The author provides reasonable evidence of the steps that the OPO should take to compensate donors. The legitimate issues of the compensation and healthcare insurances are at stake because the opponents question not only the legitimacy of compensation but also the aftercare of donating kidneys. Since the OPO does not know the side effects that could happen to living kidney donors after donating and cannot provide life-long healthcare insurance to them, opponents believe the donors' life-long aftercare cannot be supported. The source is credible since the author uses statistical data from other experimental primary sources that shows the lack of kidney donations. Also, the author acknowledges and tries to understand the counterarguments. However, even though the author gives objective evidence, it is still biased because his main goal is to convince the reader, so he provides many unrealistic plans. For example, he claims that one million dollars would be enough for donors after they get surgery, but readers cannot know whether it is a realistic amount because he does not explain why he chose one million dollars for financial compensation (Matas 378-384). 

The third article's argument is similar to the previous one. The authors of the third source claim that it is necessary to support the living kidney donors financially because lowering the financial pressure on the donors would lead to an increase in kidney donations. To support the authors' claim, they set up an experiment as major evidence to see how current living kidney donors would react to the idea of financial compensation for donating kidneys. The authors propose that without financial compensation, the kidney donors would be threatened because financial struggles would be at stake for the donors in the future as a result of the kidney transplant surgeries. It is not acceptable for donors to be stressed about spending their own money if any medical complications arise due to transplants. The source is very credible because the authors actually performed an experiment which supported their central claim of the legalization of financial compensation for living kidney donors. However, the experiment that the authors studied still contains bias because the experiment's participants were limited and were all people who had already donated kidneys before (Shaw 3201-3212). 

In conclusion, the research question is arguable because financial compensation for the people who donate their living kidneys is a controversial and divisive issue. Opponents believe that financial compensation contradicts the moral belief that a body part should not be sold because it is God's gift (Caplan 1). However, many people agree with the legalization of financial compensation because they claim that it is unfair for living kidney donors to be stressed financially for the payment of aftercare of a kidney donation (Shaw 3201-3212). These different points of view allowed me to understand that legalization of financial compensation is not a simple law making problem. I might keep the research question, but I might need to revise it by adding the question of what types of financial compensation the U.S. government could provide other than cash compensation. 

