Having learned six weeks ago that I'll need a kidney transplant in 2006, I highly commend this thoughtful piece by Gary Becker: “Should the Purchase and Sale of Organs for Transplant Surgery be Permitted?”. Fortunately for me, I have family members willing to donate, but not everyone who needs a new kidney is so fortunate.

The idea of a market in body parts makes many decent people squeamish, no doubt. But the idea of thousands of disease victims dying annually, when they could be saved by lifting a ban on mutually beneficial exchanges, should make decent people even more squeamish.