Pro-choice?

[gwendally]

Should people be allowed to sell their kidneys?

Let's say you are really healthy and a friend of yours is really unhealthy.  You are inclined to help your friend, but really can't afford to take the time off of work and - honestly - want a little sumpthin sumpthin for your effort.  You hear that other people get $10,000 in other countries for a good

Comments

[crazyburro]

Because of the ethical issues with treating organs as property like any other. I have no doubt cash available would increase the number of organs available. But the problems with treating them as sale-able property are issues like

1. duress, of exactly the issue you outlined in your base note.

2. what happens if you go bankrupt. If it's your property, can a judge order the sale of your spares? That liver lobe you don't need? Some spare skin? You'll grow more. If so, who decides the doc who does the surgery? If a hospital with a worse record is selected, perhaps because whoever had the security found them to be cheaper and something goes wrong, who's liable?

3. could you sell your kids spares on their behalf, say to pay for a good elementary school or high school? If it's their other property, sure you can. You're doing it for their benefit. Is it to their benefit to trade a kidney for what you think is a better school?

Ford is referring to deceased donors, so...

4. Is there a responsibility on the part of your executor to sell your organs quickly, before they deteriorate, regardless of whether your next of kin agrees? Does the hospital maintain a market? Arms length? Can it profit from being the broker? Does that put it at risk of ushering people to their deaths because it has an order?

If your executor doesn't act quickly enough is your executor shielded in any way from suit? They're responsible for safeguarding your assets to maximize residual value to pay out. What if the person is intestate? Or it takes some time to file probate/get short certificates? How does one sustain the viability of the organs?

[ford_prefect42]

Actually, in most of my posts, I am refering to live donors. In the post of yours that starts
"I guess I have little respect for a corpse or the sensibilities of the next of kin where it's balanced against the living.", you moved it onto the dead donor territory, to which I responded.

There are several examples of personal property that is shielded in certain ways. Retirement accounts are not accessible to creditors, bankruptcy does not impact the personal residence, etcetera. It would be easier to deal with most of the issues you are raising than you're making it sound. For instance, no underaged donors of anything that doesn't regenerate would be a stipulation that I don't think anyone would debate. Not even me.

[crazyburro]

That shielding of property varies from state to state. Retirement accounts are shielded to varying degrees by different states, by BAPCA, and by ERISA. But BAPCA only applies to bankruptcy, and ERISA only to employer accounts. Roths and contributory IRAs have capped exemptions.

Bankruptcy does affect the personal residence in many states. Some allow you to file a homestead exemption but it's frequently not done, and in some states only covers up to a certain value, frequently quite low.

I have no doubt that some state will eventually allow a modern day debt holder to collect the proverbial pound of flesh.

[ford_prefect42]

Yes, my point was that there exist precedents for considering one's parts both property, in terms of establishment of a marketplace, but *not* property in that they can't be taken by standard court actions.

That said, as I have often said, all things happen, so yes, at some point down the road, I Am sure that a judge will determine that someone, somewhere, has to sell a kidney to pay debts.

That is more acceptable to me than the status quo, which says that I cannot dispose as I choose, with my own body. Or that I cannot enter into contracts on these issues due to the sensibilities of uninvolved parties.

[crazyburro]

Then why is it unacceptable to take something that won't grow back from a kid, to satisfy the debt of the parent? After all, it will only be prohibited due to the "sensibilities of uninvolved parties".

[ford_prefect42]

Because the kid can't consent.

[crazyburro]

only because within the last century kids moved from being property under the law to being sentient beings with rights. Due to the sensibilities of society.

[ford_prefect42]

Do you have a point? Or are you just going to repeat "the sensibilities of society" on irrelevant topics until I get sick of it?

[crazyburro]

Why is it irrelevant? You seem to think society will limit the extremes of paying for organs. It won't. It's a slippery slope and it ends nowhere good.

[ford_prefect42]

Not society, I think the absolute worst of "society", I think pretty well of a pretty good percentage of individual people.

The example you gave was irrelevant because it was an example of progress *toward* the sovereignty of sentience, Which is the only valid objective moral stance. That does not depend on the "sensibilities of uninvolved parties", only the decisions of consenting parties to the events.

[ford_prefect42]

Same reason juvenile criminal records are expunged, and children cannot incur debts. Because placing lifelong burdens on the child due to the poor judgement of others is fundamentally different to doing the same due to their *own* judgement (which they have yet to develop).

[crazyburro]

And yet we allow teenagers and even pre-teens to be tried as adults for certain crimes, despite poorly developed judgment. So we do in fact place lifelong burdens on children. For example in Indiana a 10 year old can legally be tried as an adult (but could not be sentenced to life without parole, even prior to the recent SCOTUS ruling). Florida allows a child of any age to be transferred (or did, as of about 2000, probably still does).

Some adults (I use that term loosely) in the state legislature considered that acceptable.

We also place other burdens on kids because of their parents. Mom/Dad loses the house/can't pay the rent/doesn't have money for medical care/doesn't have money for food, the kid gets the impact.

Paying for organs is a path I don't think we should even *start* down.

[ford_prefect42]

Yes, because there are circumstances that transcend that immunity. For instance murder. Children are not charged as adults for minor crimes, only the most extreme ones.

And there's a difference, in every possible way between imposing lifelong burdens on children and having their families move.

I don't know why you get a say in what I can do with my own organs. You have *no* moral right to even have an opinion. Nor do you have the right to murder my customer, which is what you're doing by deliberately preventing them from getting my kidney.

Are you pro choice? Given your logic-chain, you better say no, or you're revealing an *epic* lack of rational thought.

[crazyburro]

The pro-choice lobby would not recognize me as pro-choice, and the pro-life lobby would not recognize me as pro-life. As with many other things, including organ donation vs. sale, there's a balance to be struck.

So far as I'm concerned you do what you want with your organs. Stab yourself, cut them out, pickle them, whatever.

But when you start to sell them you enter into a set of societal issues that you seem to think have simple, pat "free market" answers. At that point society *does* get a say. That's part of living in a society. Weaker members *do* get some protection from living in it, and should. The balance of that protection is an ongoing discussion. (I think it should be quite limited, but this is one of those areas where I'm not really satisfied with any of the outcomes)

Not everyone will be satisfied with the result. Clearly not you. I'm not either, but there are other directions I think should be pursued long before we get to a market of sorts. Some will complain that others shouldn't have a say in how one conducts ones affairs - they're right, sometimes. Sometimes they're not, but the conversation needs to be had.

And no, being one or the other does not reveal an "*epic*" lack of rational thought. Claims like that are a common ideologue's response to losing an argument, but you don't (usually) strike me as an ideologue.

[crazyburro]

That would depend open the definition of "ideologue". Most include in that definition a willingness to use force to implement their ideals, and I am opposed to that. I am pretty wedded to the idea that that initiation of force is morally wrong, inflexible on that issue even. So again, I am, or am not an ideologue depending on your definitions. Is it a *bad* thing to be an "extremist" in the cause of freedom?

The thing is that this "protection" serves no one. You are not "protecting" the poor by denying them the option of the economic ladder that this marketplace could provide. You are not "protecting" the sick by denying them access to the organs they could purchase. You are not "protecting" society by causing the deaths of those that would have purchased their organs, you are not protecting morality by initiating force to prevent that marketplace from coming into existence, *all* you are doing is exerting a certain "commerce is bad, mmkay" sort of power trip, and it is *only* opposed by those with no dog in the fight. Those that want an organ want the market, without it, they die. Those that want to sell organs want the market, without it, they remain where they are (50k, a typical price for a kidney, is enough to pay off student loans, buy a modest house in much of the country, to move to a different place, one with opportunities, etcetera). Those that perform the operations want the market, they get paid for the operations.

The extent to which I would agree that the vulnerable need "protection" would extend only to children and those adjudicated mentally incompetent, those that a court has decided lack sufficient *sentience* to see to their own interests.

Prostitution does have similarities, it's true that paying for it fundamentally changes the act, but that's not really why it's illegal, nor are the children. The reason it's illegal is the spread of STDs, a societal problem that extends well beyond the participants in the transaction. Now, as that problem has lessened, more and more nations have recognized the fundamental error of restricting it, and in the process have alleviated the worst of the aspects of it. Prostitution is legal in most of europe, and in those nations where it is, there is far less sexual slavery, human trafficking, abuse of the prostitutes, and the spread of disease is lessened.

The organ trade is fundamentally different to prostitution in that it has negative repercussions to *no one* that is not directly involved. So society has no moral right to regulate it. Again, the only reason that you have a say on this issue is that you hold a gun. No other thing, rational, moral, or ethical, gives you any right to a say on this issue.

[gwendally]

I think that rich people would exploit poor people for their body parts. Not slowly, not on a slippery slope, but pretty much straight off the bat. And because there is a never-ending supply of poor people I do NOT think the price of a kidney would be a college education. Supply far exceeds demand.