Interesting medical ethics issue

[ckissick]

I just heard a story of a lady in AZ who is asking for a kidney on Craig's List. I was wondering how much she was willing to pay for the kidney, but then the reporter said it's legal to solicit and receive an organ from someone, as long as no money is involved. So why would anyone donate a kidney for free?

Should the law allow people to get paid to donate organs? I can see some real ethical issues here. On the other hand, this lady will probably die, since she seems unlikely to find someone valiant enough to give her a kidney for free.

[Rick Lee]

Why donate one for free? Because it's illegal in the US to get paid for it and donating one gets you to the top of the list if you need a transplant later on. I dated a girl who had donated a kidney to a friend. She said there was an exhaustuve investigation beforehand to make sure no money was changing hands. I think it's outrageous that it's illegal to sell your organs. Where the hell does the gov't get the power to ban that? It would solve a lot of shortages very quickly and fix some folks' financial problems too.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I thought that was an ObamaCare provision.

[Rikao4]

going rate for Kidney in Iraq..
4 K..

Rika

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Why donate one for free? Because it's illegal in the US to get paid for it and donating one gets you to the top of the list if you need a transplant later on. I dated a girl who had donated a kidney to a friend. She said there was an exhaustuve investigation beforehand to make sure no money was changing hands. I think it's outrageous that it's illegal to sell your organs. Where the hell does the gov't get the power to ban that? It would solve a lot of shortages very quickly and fix some folks' financial problems too.

I can see both sides of the issue. With an open market some folks would be selling kidneys from kidnap victims. The urban legend of the guy waking up in a bathtub full of ice could come to pass.

[Rick Lee]

I think they should at least require a bill of sale from the actual donor.

[stomachmonkey]

Get paid for an organ.

Just seems morally wrong to me and could be a very slippery slope.

YMMV

[Rick Lee]

Why? If you donate blood to the Red Cross, they sell it. Any college kid can sell sperm or plasma. You might feel differently if you were sentenced to death by being placed at the bottom of the transplant waitlist. I'd be on the next plane to China.

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Why?

.

Think of the middle-men hucksters that would spring up overnight: McKidneys , Kidneys'R Us etc. Then think of the poor slobs that would sell their kidneys to buy lottery tickets and drugs. Then think of the criminals who would harvest kidneys without consent etc.

The whole concept is just too sordid to contemplate. Nasty things will happen in a completely free market place.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by Dottore

The whole concept is just too sordid to contemplate. Nasty things will happen in a completely free market place.

Then I have to ask what you'd do if diagnosed with a year to live and put on the bottom of the waitlist.

There are already millions of idiots out there who spend their meager wages or even welfare on lottery tickets. When I worked at a convenient store in college, I saw folks buy $.05 single pieces of gum or pretzels with $1 food stamps so they could get change back and, after a few purchases, have enough for a pack of smokes.

The gov't. already tries to prevent all this by banning the sale of organs. That drives the folks with money overseas. It just shifts those things you mentioned to foreigners, but doesn't stop them. It'd be a lot easier to regulate in the US by allowing the sale of organs than to have this high and mighty law and waitlist, which is a death sentence for most on it.