| In August 1998, as a teenager, writer Dylan Walsh received a kidney transplant. Just six days earlier, his older brother had gotten his first kidney transplant, too. Walsh begins his probing essay with some memories from his operation. "I remember waking from great depths after surgery under bright lights and shivering violently, then falling back asleep. I remember lying naked under blankets in the ICU, mildly delirious from morphine while watching a movie about a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness, with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin fleeing a giant grizzly bear. I remember friends visiting me on the recovery floor, and how it hurt to laugh." Walsh and his brother share a genetic mutation that can lead to kidney failure. His brother has already had his second transplant, and Walsh knows his time will come. Their story is the foundation for Dylan's inquiry into the widespread problem that there are more people in need of a kidney transplant than there are available donor organs. His proposed solution is simple: Compensate people for their kidneys. As Walsh argues, it would save lives and be economically sensible. The practicalities and safety measures necessary for such a scheme would, of course, be more complex. But what has perhaps done more to stop this particular bit of social design from becoming a reality has more to do with a kind of precious view of the human body—that we're more than disposable parts. But are we? Or can we overcome that view in order to save thousands of lives? —Matthew McKnight | Features Editor | 
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