Anyone Have a Spare Kidney to Sell?
Thanks to a tip from Christopher MacDonald from his Business Ethics Blog, we've learned that the sale of live kidneys will be permitted in Singapore thanks to new legislation just passed there.
The rationale? Donors should be compensated for their time and effort, but not to be induced into donating. It's hard to imagine, however, how a five or six figure sum, as reported in the Straits Times, could not be an inducement for those who are at a financial disadvantage and need the cash.
McDonald says that, in spite of himself, he has come to support organ markets. It is true that the current system is not producing enough organs for those who need them--demand far outstrips supply. But I have been more than reluctant to embrace payment for any nation or for any reason out of concern for inducement and the lack of truly informed consent when organ procurement becomes a business. For now, we should rely on altruism until the data suggest from bioethics research that persons, regardless of their socioeconomic status, can sell an organ in a market and be free of inducement and that money doesn't change people's minds about how essential their second kidney is.
Summer Johnson, PhD
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But why *shouldn't* money change people's minds? Most of us alter our behaviour pretty regularly for money.
If a lower-middle class person in India thinks it through, and decides that it's simply *worth* it to her to sell a kidney in order to be able to afford to start her own business -- for the betterment of her & her family -- that doesn't seem unreasonable.
- by Chris MacDonald on Nov 24, 2008 at 2:49 PM | link
I would definently if it would help get my family on its feet again in this economy. I cant get a home loan cause I ask too little so why not!? That way I know I would be helping someone live as well as help my family live too! Any way ya look at it two families are benefited and that way it singles out the rich and the poor and the poor are more likely to be pushed through the donation list quicker as the rich are taken off cause they could buy their own kidney.
- by HB on Aug 24, 2009 at 8:01 PM | link