Nobel Prize Winning Economist: Legalize Sale of Human Organs 518
retroworks writes "Dr. Gary Becker (University of Chicago) and Julio Elias (Universidad CEMA, Argentina) wrote a thought-provoking editorial in last week's WSJ, arguing that the prohibition on voluntary sale and trade of human organs is probably killing people. In 2012, 95,000 American men, women and children were on the waiting list for new kidneys. Yet only about 16,500 kidney transplant operations were performed that year. 'The altruistic giving of organs might decline with an open market, since the incentive to give organs to a relative, friend or anyone else would be weaker when organs are readily available to buy. On the other hand, the altruistic giving of money to those in need of organs could increase to help them pay for the cost of organ transplants.' Paying for organs would lead to more transplants, the article maintains. 'Initially, a market in the purchase and sale of organs would seem strange, and many might continue to consider that market "repugnant." Over time, however, the sale of organs would grow to be accepted, just as the voluntary military now has widespread support.'"
False equivalence much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Over time, however, the sale of organs would grow to be accepted, just as the voluntary military now has widespread support.
Over time, however, the sale of bananas would grow to be accepted, just as the Lil' Orphan Annie Fan Club now has widespread support. Wait, what? Oh, they're trying to draw a parallel based on efficacy, as opposed to such piffling concerns as morality. TFA goes on to say "Whether paying donors is immoral because it involves the sale of organs is a much more subjective matter, but we question this assertion, given the very serious problems with the present system." but problems with the current system don't excuse problems with the proposed system.
Re:False equivalence much? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're economists. They recognize that rich people are dying, while poor people could be paid to to take that risk instead. By removing artificial restrictions, the free market will find the efficiency maximizing solution. Because the solution that a free market finds is axiomatically the best one. /sarcasm
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yup, they're economists basing everything around economics.
They could have combined their findings with other areas of expertise - such as common sense - by saying "people are just fucking lazy, so we find that by making organ donation on death the default option, there will be many more organs available that used not to be collected because people were too lazy to fill out the donation form, they'll still be too lazy to fill out the opt-out form".
Any theory that ignores all but one aspect of human nature i
Re:False equivalence much? (Score:5, Insightful)
If all you have is a Nobel Prize in Economics, everything looks like an expense. [wiktionary.org]
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yup, they're economists basing everything around economics.
They could have combined their findings with other areas of expertise - such as common sense - by saying "people are just fucking lazy, so we find that by making organ donation on death the default option, there will be many more organs available that used not to be collected because people were too lazy to fill out the donation form, they'll still be too lazy to fill out the opt-out form".
Any theory that ignores all but one aspect of human nature is ultimate self-serving. In this case, making money for someone.
Where is this form? When I got my drivers license, the person asked me verbally if I wanted to be an organ donor. I said yes, and that was it. It's recorded in my government records and printed on the license. I could have answered no, but I had to answer something. It doesn't get much easier than saying one word.
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In most western nations, your family also has to agree for your organs to be donated upon your death
I'm in the US. Fortunately, I haven't experienced that end of the system yet.
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Yeah, here in Canada, it is basically a hint.
After you die, they have to ask the people who show up at the hospital for you [presumably your family] whether they want to donate your organs [so, they have to ask the family at one of the most traumatic times of lives if it is OK to dice up their wife, brother, child].
Not only is the default to NOT donate organs, there is no legal way for you to select being an organ donor, because your choice is only legally binding while you are alive, once you are declared
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Yeah, let's put an incentive in place to murder people who have organs that match someone wealthy enough to pay for them.
Economics...and politics (Score:3)
yup, they're economists basing everything around economics.
True, but the proposal is not just economics but economics with a political bias thrown in. For example you could allow selling of human organs to encourage supply while requiring that they are sold to a central agency that then distributes them to hospitals based on where they will be most effective. This would be using economics to encourage supply while still maximizing the life saving potential of those organs by directing them based on medical need and prognosis rather than bank balance. It would prob
Re:False equivalence much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they recognize you can kill political prisoners and make a fortune by selling their innards?
In the American south, prison labor used to be common. You'd pay the warden and he'd share that money downward to the guards and police, etc., and prisoners would be sent to work for you for no pay to them. Oddly, the prisons were always full of people who were guilty of being black. There was a financial incentive to keep the prisons full.
If we legalize pay for organs, there's a great incentive for people you don't like to not only wind up in prison, but for them to commit suicide, get shot trying to escape, have accidents, etc.
Re:False equivalence much? (Score:5, Funny)
Even this damnyankee knows the South isn't like that anymore. Wake up, this is the 21st century. You buy organs from China.
Re:False equivalence much? (Score:5, Interesting)
Kind of off topic here, but the past tense there is sadly inappropriate. Prison labor is still pretty common especially in the south.. They're even having prisoners do labor for corporations. That way, the big companies get all the savings of using unfree labor in china, but they get to do it at home, so they can stick a "made in america" label on it.
And the prisons are still full of people who are guilty of being black. Then there's the whole extraordinarily depressing school-to-jail thing. (including a judge in Pennsylvania who was taking bribes to ship kids off to juvie and....well, this http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/11/school_prison_pipeline_meridian.html [colorlines.com] where kids end up incarcerated for things like talking back to teachers.
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That's what the Chinese do.
The prisons, run by the Red Army, execute a prisoner, in the way that would keep the organs in best shape, and the prison directors sell the organs, like the heart and kidneys, to wealthy foreigners. The Chinese hospitals perform the transplants.
The patients often die. In a medical system where doctors are motivated by making as much money as possible, and get paid cash up front, they don't have that much concern for their patients.
The Wall Street Journal had a story about this. T
Pretty sure the rich/famous already get... (Score:2)
Hell of a ballplayer, but it's evident he was not a decent candidate for transplant.
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I for one welcome that an economist has put it out there. I am not for "organs for cash" but at some point somebody with the power to initiate change will put it on the table and I think its best to have the discussion now. Nobody should be skewered for putting an idea out there, no matter how terrible the idea is. If people actually start thinking about it now they will be better prepared if the idea ever gets any traction.
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Ideas are not all interchangeable. We should respond apropriately to the severity of each "proposal". Some proposals are, by their nature, move vile than others. For example, we do not discuss politely the pros and cons of slavery, genocide, etc. We shouldn't discuss these particular ideas politely either. We should be meeting them with derision, and blaming these ignorant economists for skirting human history and ethics, whether deliberately as the
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but problems with the current system don't excuse problems with the proposed system.
What problems? You seem to think that there's some "immoral" reason against the sale of organs. But we have here an example where something which is supposedly "moral' kills a lot of people each year through organ shortages.
Re:False equivalence much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering that china puts people in prison and harvests their organs, for nothing more than their religious affiliation, it seems reasonable that the market will lead to other "externalities".
Al Roth has done great work with market design, and how to get organs to the people that need them most, by matching incompatible donors reciprocally, however this is another chicago-school "free market fixes everything" nonsense.
Considering the "quality adjusted life years" are coming from somewhere, and most dead people can't consent or benefit from a sale, unless of course you put them into indentured servitude first and "collect" assets upon death.
Re:False equivalence much? (Score:5, Insightful)
What problems? You seem to think that there's some "immoral" reason against the sale of organs. But we have here an example where something which is supposedly "moral' kills a lot of people each year through organ shortages.
Okay how about this problem: In a world where human organs are bought and sold, where do most of those organs come from? The poor. And since they will be expensive, where do they go? To the rich.
Here is another one: In the poorest corners of the world will people have children for the purpose of eventually selling all their paired organs?
Here's a hell of a problematic question: Who gets the money for a heart or any other single organ? And another: When it is legal to trade in some kinds of ivory it is hard to distinguish the legal stuff from the poached stuff. How will we prevent organ poaching? Do we really want to create a strong financial incentive to murder, or worse farm people for their organs?
Saving a life is not always the highest moral result.
Re:False equivalence much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Over time, however, the sale of organs would grow to be accepted, just as the voluntary military now has widespread support.
Over time, however, the sale of bananas would grow to be accepted, just as the Lil' Orphan Annie Fan Club now has widespread support. Wait, what? Oh, they're trying to draw a parallel based on efficacy, as opposed to such piffling concerns as morality.
A voluntary military has the same moral problem. If you pay people to fight wars, you're going to end up with poorer people dying in your wars.
problems with the current system don't excuse problems with the proposed system.
No, but surely he is arguing that the good (reducing deaths resulting from a scarcity of organs) outweighs the bad (problems associated with an organ market).
He is making two different points, first that an organ market would be beneficial, and second, that it could become acceptable in the same way that paying an army has become acceptable, despite the fact that the latter presents a similar moral concern. One might disagree with these assertions, but they do not appear to be as incoherent as you imply.
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A voluntary military has the same moral problem. If you pay people to fight wars, you're going to end up with poorer people dying in your wars.
"paying to fight wars" is what you do if you have a mercenary force, not a military. A voluntary military *should* just be there for defense of its nation. Granted in recent times there has been a ton of bullshit adventurism and mission scope creep, blurring the lines in a bad way, but that's due to incompetent leaders making shitty decisions.
No, but surely he is arguing that the good (reducing deaths resulting from a scarcity of organs) outweighs the bad (problems associated with an organ market).
This is also a system ripe for corruption on a massive, world-unprecedented scale. So much so that such a market would need to be regulated so heavily, to ensure FULLY
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I mostly agree, but I will point out that (disproportionately poorer) volunteer soldiers know what they're getting into and choose that the risk is worth it to them. In contrast, the (disproportionately poorer) victims of illegal organ harvesting do not get a say in things. I have some problems with a legal organ market, but they are nothing compared to the problems I have with the idea of a booming black market for organs/donor slayings. By creating an open market, you'd strip away a protection that's in p
Economists (Score:4, Insightful)
Now they presented us with a spirited defense of high-tech cannibalism. That is no surprise to anyone at the least familiar with those people. The whole profession of economics is morally and intellectually suspect, and the Chicago school - particularly so.
What could possibly go wrong??? (Score:5, Insightful)
The buying and selling of human organs is a very, very bad idea. May as well grow humans for the body bank if we are going to go down this route. And just like you have theft of other sold goods how long would it take before organ theft became the new wave of crime?
Re:What could possibly go wrong??? (Score:4, Insightful)
The organ theft urban legend has been around for a long time, but organ transplant isn't just something any unethical surgeon can do in the back of a fan. You need to match a donor first, which needs access to a suitable laboratory. Then you need a highly skilled surgeon, and a sterile operating environment, a team of supporting surgeons and nurses, an anesthetist, lots of drugs that are hard to get on the black market (Anasthetic, immunosurpresents, potent antibiotics). Expensive and specialised machines to monitor the recipient*. If organ theft does/could happen, it would have to be an operation so sophisticated and expensive that it could only be the domain of the most powerful of organised crime organisations. The ones who can pay off hospitals to carry out an off-the-books transplant.
*Double that if you intend the donor survive. This part is optional.
Urban Legend? (Score:2)
I met a man in South Carolina who claimed to have sold a kidney for crack. He displayed the most horrible scar, which I could very well have believed to be from the most amateur of surgeons. I remember that he said, "You know those stories that you hear about people waking up in a bathtub full of ice? Yeah, that happened to me."
But he said he'd kicked the habit.
Now, I make no claims as to this man's honesty, only to my own recollection, but surely while the implantation of an organ requires all that you men
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Uh, that sounds like more of a cautionary tale about smoking crack than organ theft...
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And before someone suggests it can be done on the cheap: No, it can't. Black market organ buying does happen in some countries, but even there they have to use a real hospital.
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"The organ theft urban legend has been around for a long time..."
Urban legend? I think Charlie the Unicorn would disagree.
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The organ theft urban legend has been around for a long time
It's an urban legend because it's hard to sell an organ to a specific buyer - you have to get a biological match. It would be a different story if there were an open market though. A randomly "harvested" organ would likely match somebody on the waiting list.
Re:What could possibly go wrong??? (Score:5, Informative)
The organ theft urban legend has been around for a long time, but organ transplant isn't just something any unethical surgeon can do in the back of a fan.
Unethical surgeons aided by criminal enterprises (which is sometimes the state) seem to be available.
Kidney Thefts Shock India [nytimes.com]
GURGAON, India — As the anesthetic wore off, Naseem Mohammed said, he felt an acute pain in the lower left side of his abdomen. Fighting drowsiness, he fumbled beneath the unfamiliar folds of a green medical gown and traced his fingers over a bandage attached with surgical tape. An armed guard by the door told him that his kidney had been removed.
Mr. Mohammed was the last of about 500 Indians whose kidneys were removed by a team of doctors running an illegal transplant operation, supplying kidneys to rich Indians and foreigners, police officials said. A few hours after his operation last Thursday, the police raided the clinic and moved him to a government hospital.
Many of the donors were day laborers, like Mr. Mohammed, picked up from the streets with the offer of work, driven to a well-equipped private clinic, and duped or forced at gunpoint to undergo operations.
Illegal kidney trade booms as new organ is 'sold every hour' [theguardian.com]
China Admits Selling Prisoners’ Organs [go.com]
Stolen baby is found alive - Woman arrested in grisly case [boston.com]
The baby who had been ripped from her slain mother’s womb was found alive and well in New Hampshire last night, and a woman was arrested in the grisly killing and kidnapping
Social workers 'seize unborn baby from the WOMB' after mother has panic attack [mirror.co.uk]
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And just like you have theft of other sold goods how long would it take before organ theft became the new wave of crime?
This makes no sense. Illegal black market goods are more likely to be stolen than legal goods, both because the price is higher, and because the theft is less likely to be reported. Criminalizing things does not reduce crime.
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There's already a black market in material from corpses in the US. Alistair Cooke, who spend half a century telling the UK once a week how weird and wonderful America is, ended up being part of that strangeness himself when his cancer ridden 95 year old body was dug up and bones taken to be used in bone grafts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alistair_Cooke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomedical_Tissue_Services
Then there's whatever was happ
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People have been selling blood for years, granted your body makes more and you can sell it again next month but I don't think selling organs would end up making some weird sci-fi horror come true.
Read Larry Niven's stories about "organleggers" (Score:2)
Before you go too far down this road, you might want to read some sci-fi Larry Niven wrote back in 70's (I believe). It was set in a future where the market for organs was booming and sale of organs was legal. And as a result, the death penalty had a good revival. After all, that convicted axe murderer could end up saving more lives than he took, if you disassembled him for spare parts. Given that we all want to live longer, who would oppose extending the death penalty?
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This sci-fi scenario makes no sense. If there was a free market in organs, the supply would rise, and the value of an organ would go down not up. So there would be less incentive for the state to execute people to get their organs.
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This assumes that the supply is meaningful fraction of the demand. The demand is huge, and as you add more reliable supply new demand is created.
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Yes but there are some organs that you just can't buy from volunteers. Kidneys work because someone can live with only one. It's a bit more difficult for someone to sell their heart and continue seeing their family.
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This is already happening in China.
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(I didn't read the book"
There was morre than one book, and most of them were short stories. Gil the ARM was the main character (ARM was the UN police force)
Death by Ecstasy was a very good story
Make organ donars have priority access to organs. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Part of the problem with trying to use market ideas to improve the situation is that available organs will always be in VERY short supply. The number of bodies that are actually in a condition to have organs harvested per day is pretty small (except for organs that can non-fatally be removed like kidneys), while demand is pretty high. No matter how good the incentive is, the supply will simply never be t
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The solution is to create a donor list
Actually, this solves nothing. The vast majority of people will never need an organ replaced, and it is something they just don't think about. Most people are non-donors because it is an opt-in system, and they haven't made the effort to check the box. A far better solution is to make donating the default, and require people to check the box to opt-out.
Another solution would be to repeal motorcycle helmet laws. Most motorcyclists are young and healthy, and death by a good clean head injury often leaves
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The problem with the proposed system of giving priority to organ donors i
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The solution is to create a donor list
Actually, this solves nothing. The vast majority of people will never need an organ replaced, and it is something they just don't think about. Most people are non-donors because it is an opt-in system, and they haven't made the effort to check the box. A far better solution is to make donating the default, and require people to check the box to opt-out.
My state gives you a discount on the cost of a driver's license if you check "yes" to be an organ donor. $15 for checking a box is motivation for a lot of people.
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The other states should implement this with a $15 increase in fee. :)
Re:Make organ donars have priority access to organ (Score:4, Insightful)
"Another solution would be to repeal motorcycle helmet laws."
Also ban seat belts in cars and make texting while driving compulsory.
Thought this through, have you? (Score:3)
The solution is to create a donor list: if you are on the list you will receive organs before none donors in the event you need one/
Not everyone who would benefit from a donation can be a donor. Those most in need of a donor are unlikely to find a place on your donor list.
if everyone was willing to give their organs, there wouldn't be a supply issue.
This isn't simply a problem of supply and demand but of time and place. Doubling the pool of potential - not actual - donor organs doesn't mean you have doubled the number of successful organ transplants.
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=snip=
The solution is to create a donor list: if you are on the list you will receive organs before none donors in the event you need one
=snip=
And how do you enforce this "pledge"? I think the percentage of welchers might be a bit higher than the local PBS station gets.
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By law ?
So when someone has "changed their mind", strap people down on an operating table by force and anesthetize them? I guess we have precedent with the existing death penalty here.
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The biggest reason why there is an organ supply problem is that there is no incentive for people to give up their own organs. The solution is to create a donor list: if you are on the list you will receive organs before none donors in the event you need one
Or they could allow each actual donor to provide a short list of people that will be prioritized, in the event, that the donor's organs are harvested. First priority to actual surviving donors, Second priority to 1 extra person listed by the donor
Re:Make organ donars have priority access to organ (Score:5, Informative)
cadaveric yes, live no (Score:5, Insightful)
I think allowing the sale of cadaveric organs is reasonable; right now, hospitals and doctors effectively enrich themselves and frequently engage in fraud and nepotism. Getting that money to the family of the deceased is a good thing.
I draw the line at for-pay live organ donations. Taken on their own, they are likely to be beneficial to both recipients and donors. However, once there is a large market and medical facilities for for-profit live donations, the risk of criminal activity in this area becomes much larger, including blackmail and other forms of coercion, and that worries me.
Rust (Score:4, Insightful)
And thereby create a black market in organs... (Score:4, Informative)
Organlegging: [technovelgy.com] Technology needed to deal in illicitly obtained body parts.
Bill Christensen wrote: As far as I know, Niven was the first writer to really work with a topic that is just starting to become a problem, thanks to drugs that make transplantation viable.
Great plan for "businessmen" (Score:3, Insightful)
Economist thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone knows money motivates people. There are other considerations in the prohibition against the sale of organs.
This is why we don't let economists run the world.
One thing might mitigate the hideosness (Score:2)
There are a lot of financial levers that might make it seem like people had no choice but to sell their organs. And those levers would quickly be used by death-by-spreadsheet monsters. The only thing that I think might mitigate this horrible idea is if the organ sale was for some other life-saving service. IE no money is involved, but a trade in organs or services. You give up this kidney which will save someones life, and in return you get medical care which will save your own life. Or your chil
Too evil. (Score:4, Insightful)
What is evil? I like the AD&D definition - a scale of more and more willing to allow harm to others for your own benefit. Of course, what is seen as harm that matters is the rub.
Would an open organ market save lives - oh, yes, and prohibiting it does cost lives - so one could certainly argue like here that the prohibition is evil.
But allowing such a market will create a society that allows much more willful harm for profit. Right now, organ illegal organ harvesting exists, but is somewhat rare and difficult to make a safe profit from. The legal 'market' is based on donations - so there is no prohibition on the act of getting organs, there's just more people with failing organs than people dying with healthy organs.
The results of allowing an organ market would be an opening bubble resulting in increased harvesting amongst the ethically 'invisible' (poor/isolated), and a greatly increased demand for 'donors' either desperate or false (in order to launder organs). Some of this will be caught, but much of it would become institutionalized.
The endpoint would be a lot of poor people across the world dead and permanently disabled, a lot of wealthy and older people living a few months longer, a relatively few children of the wealthy saved, and a HUGE number of people financially invested in the organ market through their banks and mutual funds.
This last part is the big evil thing - markets always, ALWAYS demand more - more organs, more secrecy, more profitability. They thrive on multiplying evil in terms of harm ('externalities') in order to create better profit ratios.
The whole pattern is just far to evil for me.
I'd suggest putting more money into single-organ cloning (there's been some amazing developments lately), but if there's one thing the market process is HORRIBLE at, it's doing scientific research - it always seems to abandon anything long term, treats it only as marketing, and destroys far too much (to prevent helping 'competitors'.) Taxes, though a limited kind of evil, tend to be much more productive over time for the same result.
Ryan Fenton
The real solution is opt-out by default (Score:5, Informative)
The real solution is already known: organ donation should be opt-out by default. Studies have already been conducted that organ donation is above 80% or so in countries that adopt an opt-out default, and only 20% or so in an opt-in system. Most people simply don't take the time to opt-in, but they similarly wouldn't take the time to opt-out.
Advertise (Score:2)
If you want to increase the supply of donor organs, forget what some idiot economist (oops, redundant) says. Do a sensible thing like start a public service campaign. In NYS you can volunteer to donate your organs after death when you get a driver's license. I've volunteered, and so have many people I know. I suspect a lot of other people just need a nudge. Don't forget lots of poor desperate people for the commercials. Involve clergy too. I'm not aware of any major religion that objects to this practice, a
Legitimate libertarian case made (Score:3)
Wow, it looks like the mere idea has generated a visceral reaction. Generating awareness of the kidney shortage is perhaps what bothers people most. But I think they make a legitimate case, as follows.
1) It is a mathematical certainty that the current system will not produce the number of kidney donations needed. So as yucky as liberalizing the trade may sound, people on the front lines need people like these economists to be discussing the matter.
2) The authors bring up a very good point that the current restriction creates a bottleneck. One can only donate a kidney once. Most people therefore hold off, not knowing the "future value" of the kidney (e.g., if a closer friend or family member may need the donation). However, many of us who may be unwilling to contribute 100% to someone would possibly consider donating $500 or $1000 to someone. The current system makes a "kickstarter" donation system impossible. And if I'm paid for a kidney, and can put the money in the bank to draw interest, knowing I can buy another kidney back if necessary, it might make me more likely to give one up.
3) For all the hand-wringing about the poor people who will feel the pressure to sell a kidney, there is a very legitimate argument that those poor people should decide on their own if they want $50,000 for a kidney. What merits the state's law against them selling something they own? And what about poor people who need a kidney? Do they stand a better chance if there are fewer incentives, and fewer kidneys?
Stand down, /. mob. At worst, this discussion brings up the inconvenient subject of donation.
They're arguing to legalize more class "warfare" (Score:4, Insightful)
Rich people don't donate organs in exchange for money. EVER. Poor people do. So yeah, let's help those economically poor people become even poorer in body and hasten their exit by letting them sell off pieces of themselves, and good riddance.
Swedish banking prize (Score:5, Informative)
Instead of directly selling organs... (Score:3)
It is the last thing poor people have to give (Score:3)
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's exploitative, the way the act of performing surgery is not. Compare to how selling yourself into slavery is illegal, even though theoretically it's "your own body".
Credit Check (Score:2)
Because it's exploitative, the way the act of performing surgery is not.
It is exploitative if someone is selling an organ to survive--I think nobody wants to see that. A better policy might be that you can donate an organ and be paid for it (or maybe have a donation made to a charity) if you go through a quick credit check to basically make sure you're probably not being exploited. (The downside is the people who couldn't get the money are the ones who most need it, but there's much less risk of exploitation.)
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
My agreeing to accept $X for my estate (family/cause/etc) for my liver/cornea/whatever is no more "exploitative" than any other transaction.
I think most people arguing against a market in organs are mainly against compensation to living donors (for their second kidney or whatever), and would be less opposed if compensation was restricted to the families of dead people.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think most people arguing against a market in organs ... would be less opposed if compensation was restricted to the families of dead people.
Depends on how they wind up dead.
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Depends on how they wind up dead.
Much of these doom scenarios are based on the assumption that the price of organs would stay high enough to kill people over. If trade in organs was legalized, it is likely that the value of an organ would fall dramatically. The donor box on my driver's license is checked, but I received nothing for that. If people were paid, say $20, for checking the box when they get their license, the number willing to donate would likely skyrocket.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Informative)
This then creates an incentive to transition people from the state of living to the state of dead.
This incentive already exists. There are huge profits in harvesting organs. A kidney transplant can generate $250k in fees. A heart transplant can cost over $1M. It is just that, under current law, none of that money can go to the donor or to the donor's family. The medical system gets to keep it all.
Here is a list of transplant costs [transplantliving.org], including the cost of "procuring" the organ.
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That comparison is ridiculous. The linked article equates an hourly wage with a diluted version of slavery: "similarities between owning and renting a person". leaving out the fact that the "rented" person is not prevented by the employer from quitting.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not repugnant to perform the transplant and sell a medical service. What's repugnant is to coerce a man in difficult financial position to sell parts of his body that are essential to his well being and survival. It's a lesser form of selling one's own life for the benefit of the rich fuckers of the world.
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> What's repugnant is to coerce a man in difficult financial position to sell parts of his body that are essential to his well being and survival.
This makes no sense as an argument. An open market legitimizes the ability to choose. The choice is still there NOW, without the proposed market (i.e. the choice is the black market today).
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
An open market to sell yourself into slavery also legitimizes your ability to chose that sort of life, that doesn't mean most people using it are not coerced. Financial coercion is just as good as physical coercion for taking a man's liberty away. There's no "free choice" between selling your organs and dying of hunger or seeing your children suffer because you are unable to provide for them.
The black market argument is morronic. There's a black market in just about every despicable activity we can imagine, say child prostitution. Should we legalize child prostitution because we already have a black market choice on the matter ?
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it's an issue of consent. They are charging for labor and skill. Consent is hard to establish in the case of organs, and it arguably matters much more than with something like a car, or even a house. Is consent present when an unemployed single mother sells a kidney for 30,000 dollars? How about when a guy sells one to pay his credit card debt? Should bankruptcy court consider your organs assets when you file? What about education? 22 year old with 60000 in non-dischargeable debt sells organs to pay off lenders? Do we want people selling organs for capital to start businesses (with a high chance of failure)?
And what happens when the price of organs goes down, because there are so many poor people with this one valuable asset to sell and they sell in large numbers? If the market crashed, it would die, because nobody would be willing to sell, and good luck getting a donation when you can buy one on the market.
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Parent poster is not postulating "at the same time". "If the market crashed" is a conditional that itself indicates there are two times being considered, a before and after. "If the market crashed" also sets a condition - if the market for some item crashes, it can't be simultaniously stay in oversupply (it can theoretically start off in oversupply, it just can't possibly stay there). The supply drops precipitately, as nobody with the item wants to sell at those prices. Supply is therefore elastic (extremel
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
A surgeon charges for his services. What makes selling organs disgusting is the idea of treating the human body as hunks of meat that are priced based on their quality. From a philosophical standpoint it is dehumanizing. From a religious standpoint it is offensive (I'm an atheist though, so maybe I should have skipped this point). From a social standpoint it can be devastating - imagine people starting selling parts of themselves if they need, or just want the cash.
From a pragmatic standpoint it's alarming to think that a mugger now has a financial incentive to butcher me, rather than just taking my wallet and moving on.
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The butchering argument is one I hadn't thought of yet... And I'd say it's pretty much on equal footing with the "forced to sell kidney to pay debts" scenario. Good one.
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Can you imagine someone choosing to lose a kidney rather than just declare bankruptcy? I can see the issue if the potential donor is an addict (drug/gambling) but would imagine a mental health checkout as well as the standard medical checks to confirm that a donor is suitable.
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Think of debts due to hospital bills of a loved one, or having to choose between having two kidneys and letting your kid go to college. If many people started selling "redundant" organs, even for the best of reasons, then standards could shift so that others might do it for not-so-great reasons.. and we get a drop in the average health of poor people, for the advantage of those that are better off.
Hell, imagine having cancer and knowing it hasn't spread to some of your valuable, sellable organs yet... and y
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People who are "better off" - whether because they're smarter, can throw a ball farther, had rich parents, or - god forbid - because they worked harder, saved more, and lived more responsible - will *always* be in a better position than someone who isn't, whether it's for fair or unfair (to whomever's judging) reasons.
Yeah: if the money I'd get from a kidney gave me a chance to beat a much more fatal disease? I'd probably take it too. And that's a rational decision, and a choice not available while the s
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The economy seems to always adjust to whether people can afford stuff though. Otherwise nobody would sell anything. If people can afford another $30000 in emergencies because they have some organs to sell, the cost of the stuff an average person buys in their life would just go up by a total of $30000. In that way, being able to sell organs while alive would become just another insurance scheme: spend a bit extra over time, so you can afford something big when you really need it.
Personally, the thought of h
bankruptcy? (Score:2)
You have a good point there! In time, the concept of selling organs becomes even more insidious.
Allowing a person to sell his organs makes his organs just another asset. When that person then declares bankruptcy, the creditors are entitled to his assets. Could that person then be forced to sell off his assets (body organs) to settle the debt? Probably not in the near future, but with the way things are going, a law would be written to mandate just this.
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That's quite a stretch. Especially considering the number of people in religions which forbid it.
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From a pragmatic standpoint it's alarming to think that a mugger now has a financial incentive to butcher me, rather than just taking my wallet and moving on.
A random lung, liver, or kidney taken by a random mugger is useless to an individual without a pretty close match involving blood type, tissue type, and organ size.
Unless and until there is a database of citizen DNA, this is unlikely.
In the US, as of June of 2013 (Wiki) about 96,000 of 119,000 folks awaiting transplants were needing kidneys, and 19 on the list die each day. OTOH, Iran started paying for kidney donors in 1988, and within 11 years cleared their waiting lists.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Crime should be illegal. (That's sarcasm.)
Sarcasm? You mean crime should be legal? :-)
Somebody who is deranged enough to use violence or the threat of violence to get money will do so regardless of what specific mechanics are available.
Low level criminals do dumb, almost spur of the moment things, like rob banks. How dumb do you have to be to do that? There's so much security, and it's so high profile, that you might as well rob a police station instead.
Criminals who commit crimes that require serious planning are another story. For example, kidnapping is rare in this country because it's hard to get away with. Organ donations might be another story. If you choose random victims and plan it well
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"Go to the hospital, sell a lung, come back, give me the money or several bad things will happen to your family."
Add regulatory burden.
Requirement for psychological evaluation; DNA sample + gene sequencing. Requirement potential sellers take a lie-detector test, show they are in good health financially and physically --- that they have the financial means to repay all debts, and confirm that they are conducting the sale willingly, not under duress, and not for booze money, or to repay some consumer
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Requirement potential sellers take a lie-detector test, show they are in good health financially and physically...
The point is that people who are in good financial health and well-enough informed to give legitimate consent don't generally choose to risk their lives to sell an organ for cash. Nobody says "I think I'll roll the dice on a 1 in 400 chance of death associated with this hepatectomy because I'd just like to see an extra twenty grand on my bank statement". Such sales will nearly always be to fulfill some unmet financial need or want.
You're also going to have trouble finding physicians and surgeons to car
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Which isn't really in dispute.
Er, yes it is. You can't just make this assertion and expect it to be accepted as fact. (Or rather you can, as the authors of TFA have done, but you shouldn't.) As things stand right now, humans can each produce two kidneys, one heart, one liver, and two lungs over their lifetimes. That's it. The supply is inelastic, and will remain so until we can produce artificial organs, at which point the donation argument becomes irrelevant anyway.
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That's like creationists pointing out that evolution is "just a theory".
If people or their estates are allowed to gain from the sale of their organs - which they aren't now - then one of three things will occur:
- fewer organs will be donated
- no change in the number of organs donated
- more organs donated
Money in exchange for organs is an obvious, direct, and large incentive for the last outcome. To rebut that it isn't flies in the face of the obvious.
When asked how long a year is, do you recalculate Earth'
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Fine only one should die, but you think bank balance is good deciding measure?
Since the human being that performs the transplant wants to be compensated for his efforts, yes. Anything else, no matter how you slice it, is called slavery.
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You must be a riot when you get pulled over for speeding.
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Ah, but you must allow the State to control how you use your own body to protect you from making Bad Choices!
Freedom is not a Victimless Crime. :-)
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They're not taking care of their organs. We should lock them up so the organs are in good shape when someone important needs them.