The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the essays "The Body Bazaar" by Karen Wright and "'Strip-Mining' the Dead: When Human Organs Are for Sale" by Gilbert Meilaender. Specifically, it will compare and contrast the writers' perspectives on selling and transplanting body organs. The moral and ethical issues surrounding human organ transplant and sale are many, and many of them are ingrained with society's fear of death, dying, and money. Some people feel it is incomprehensible to even think about selling or donating a loved ones organs after death, but there are thousands of transplant patients waiting for organs or they will die – and there lies the moral dilemma.
             Families of transplant patients waiting desperately for transplants so they can survive are always emotional and heart wrenching. Equally moving are the stories of families who donate their loved ones vital organs after a tragic accident trying to find some meaning in their loved ones' untimely deaths. Yet millions of transplant victims are still on waiting lists every year, and many people simply would not consider donating an organ, no matter how drastic the need. These two authors discuss the ethics and morality of donating organs, but they also discuss another aspect of organ transplant, the sale of donor organs for profit, something that most people are much more squeamish about even considering. Author Meilaender notes, "It's not hard to understand our national reluctance to permit the buying and selling of human organs for transplant, for it expresses a repugnance that is deeply rooted in important moral sentiments" (Meilaender). In contrast, Wright's essay at first discusses body part harvesting as a business just like any other. She writes, "Core-blood banking is just one of many enterprises that make up the late-twentieth-century trade in body parts and products" (Wright,?, p. 476). Clearly, this is the same issue, but vi...