Total Pageviews

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Morality: Is it Moral to Outlaw the Exchange of Money to Obtain a Kidney Transplant?

The bottom line is this: While some may argue it is immoral to buy and sell organs, I argue it is much more immoral to cause people who would otherwise be alive to be dead because less organs are available to the market. Let's keep more people living and reform the market for organs. A well regulated market will allow people to buy and sell organs and thus increase the supply of organs available and help everyone....because for every organ that a richer person bought, a poorer person will now have access to one more organ that is now available to the market.
Sometimes, the most moral decision is made not because it is not without any moral ambiguity or taint, but rather because it is the best option among many bad options.

Case and Point: The U.S. and the U.K.'s treating the evil Stalin as an ally in order to defeat an even greater evil, Hitler, in order to save Europe (and possibly the world) and defeat Nazi Germany.

But, clearly, to destroy Hitler, morality dictated we cut a deal with Stalin to carve up post-war Europe in order to saving the world from Hitler's ambitions of a 1,000 year rule where he would purify the world from everyone except those of the Aryan-race.

When Al Gore and Orrin Hatch promoted the passage of the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 (NOTA), its purpose was "[t]o address the nation's critical organ donation shortage and improve the organ matching and placement process." See here.
It also outlawed the buying and selling of organs for transplantation.

This piece of legislation constantly causes the death of people who are unable to receive an organ for transplantation before they die.


The are not a finite number of organs available for transplantation in the U.S. that we have already reached. Putting aside deceased donor donations, there is plenty of room for live donors to supply many kidneys to people on the waiting list and thus alleviate the shortage to some extent. If we rely on altruism alone, a certain quantity of kidneys will be supplied to the market. If live donors could be compensated for their very valuable donation (dialysis for people with kidney failure can easily cost $70,000 per year and Medicare [AKA the taxpayers] covers all people with ESRD regardless of age) then the quantity of kidneys supplied to the market would increase and the shortage can be decreased or possibly even be wiped out. See an old post here where I discuss a possible government policy where live donors are given a $50,000 tax refund for their kidney.

NOTA must be reformed to save lives!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment