Sally Satel Death's Waiting List Analysis

807 Words2 Pages

Sally Satel’s argument in Death’s Waiting List, states that there is an extreme lack of organ donors in this society. “70,000 Americans are waiting for kidneys, according to The United Network for Organ Sharing” (132 Satel) and “only about 16,000 people received one last year. “ In big cities, where the ratio of acceptable organs to needy patients is worst, the wait is five to eight years and is expected to double by 2010 ” (132 Satel). There is no reason why the wait should be this long because any one can be an organ donor and Satel does a great job of explaining the benefits further in her essay. As a previous member of the waiting list, Sally Satel resorted to desperate measures when she considered going to the black market to obtain a kidney that she needed as well as trying a website called matchingdonors.com. She was lucky enough to find a match on the website, but unfortunately he fell through. As far as the black market goes, she thought it was too risky and unsafe even though she was in a life or death situation. This all could have been prevented if more people in our country were to consider themselves organ donors. If the black market isn’t safe for buying movies or getting music illegally, then it is definitely not safe for buying a kidney. This small statement in Satel’s essay provides a shocking emotional appeal to the readers. “Someone on the organ donor list dies every ninety seconds” (130 Satel) and the clock is ticking. Its unfortunate that only about 30-40% of Americans have put themselves down as donors on their driver’s licenses while the rest of the percentage is left up to their family members to make the decision. Satel’s believe is that relying on doing the right thing is not ... ... middle of paper ... ...or’s shoes and she did an excellent job of incorporating it without over-doing. I liked that she never lashed out at people that choose not to be organ donors, but instead made it clear that it would be an advantage to both the donor and recipient. She successfully gave counterarguments and was able to switch them around to something positive that helped her argument. I agree completely with Satel’s reasoning that giving incentives would increase the total amount of donors and I believe that those measures should be taken as soon as possible. Innocent lives are being lost everyday just because there are not enough people in the United States that put “organ donor” on their driver’s licenses. Those two, very simple words can mean the world to someone on the waiting list, and there is no reason why everyone shouldn’t be a donor, especially with financial incentives.

Open Document