[j. d. worthington]

A pm from Pyan bumped my fading memory, reminding me that I'd meant to post on this back when you put it up, Dave....

I've heard snippets of stories over the last few months of this nature, but not seen anything with this much detail. And I must ask: Is it any surprise that there's such a practice burgeoning? With so many people looking at any way at all to support and improve matters for their families (unaware or unheeding of the fact that such measures are only temporary and they will end up in an even worse situation down the line because of such actions), so many people so far below the poverty level in so many countries, the exponential growth of the population over the last 50 years, etc., etc. ... is it any wonder that we're seeing such a thing becoming viewed as a viable way of making it out from under?

And then there are the other stories, about organs being removed from prisoners, etc.

The only way out of this I see is to develop both artificial organs and to continue searching for both genetic solutions and the cloning of organs (with genetic faults rectified). But that is costly, and takes time. In the interim, I'm very much afraid we are going to see things approach even closer to the scenario in "The Jigsaw Man" before we see anything genuinely effective done to stop it, or see the people who are most likely to suffer from such practices (the poor, the disenfranchised) have even an inkling of how much worse off they'll be ... at least, enough to overcome their need to provide for those they love ... or for themselves, for that matter.....