Sunday, July 26, 2009

Selling organs

Currently, it is illegal to buy or sell organs in the United States. I strongly disagree with this law, and think that people should be able to do so.

Here are two wonderful paragraphs that convey my thoughts better than I could:
It's illegal in this country to buy or sell organs for transplant. This is an unjust law made and enforced by people who desperately need neither organs nor money. It condemns kidney-disease sufferers to death and potential organ donors to poverty. It's a law that I will unhesitatingly break if one of my children needs a kidney, and I hope you will have the decency to do the same if a member of your family is in a similar situation.
...The unearned piety of those who condemn these transactions strikes me as outrageous. If someone has the right to abort her own fetus, why does she not have the right to sell her own kidney? By what authority does the state tell me I cannot save myself or my family members by paying money I earned to a willing seller of a surplus item?
They're from this article. There was also a much longer article on the whole kidney shortage (and possible solutions) from a few weeks ago.

Other thoughts on the issue? I would love to have someone speak up strongly against it so I can see the other perspective...post a comment or send me an email if you're interested in doing that.
Posted by Matt Chandler at 2:18 PM
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9 comments:

  1. I don't know very much about this subject, to be honest, so I guess I shouldn't say I have too firm an opinion. However, my initial thoughts agree with you, because I don't see what is wrong with, as it says, selling a surplus item. Especially with kidneys, when the donor can live just fine with one.

    Also, I'm curious about the normal procedure for those with kidney problems as well as kidney donors. Is it the typical scenario you see in movies where there are long lists and waiting periods and stacks of paperwork before anything actually gets done?

    I'm glad you brought this up. A lot of your posts make me think, and I really like that.
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  2. Yes, there are thousands of people waiting to get kidneys in the United State right now. There was an article in today's WSJ stating:

    "More than 80,000 Americans now wait for a kidney, according the United Network for Organ Sharing. Thirteen of them die daily; the rest languish for years on dialysis. The number of donors last year was lower than in 2005, despite decades of work to encourage people to sign donor cards and donate to loved ones."

    I think that money is just the right incentive.

    As you stated, kidneys are even more interesting because you only need one. With other organs, knowing that the family could receive compensation that could help provide for loved ones and pay funeral expenses would be an additional incentive to sign up as a donor. In my case, I'm signed up as a donor when I die and have considered kidney donation now, although I don't see myself doing it anytime soon. However, if I could get $10,000 for donating a kidney, I'd do it sooner. This would also be a huge blessing to the recipient and even if the government paid the how-ever-much-they'd-pay-the-donor, it would save them all the $$ they're paying for dialysis & hospital treatment for that individual (which is, on average, far more than $10,000 + the cost of the transplant surgery).

    Does anyone disagree with this? Why aren't we doing it?

    Today's WSJ article is at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204886304574307932274150934.html
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  3. Well, after a discussion with my mother about this, she brought up some good points.

    Mainly, as she put it, it would open a big can of worms. Meaning it could lead to other sorts of donations with the rationale that you "could live without it." It's not exactly comfortable to live with one kidney, but it is possible. It's not exactly comfortable to live with one eye, but it's possible.

    Also, it could lead to coercion for someone to donate, if they are in a dire financial situation. Example: a wife begging her husband to donate, because the family needs the money. Or vice versa. And that 10,000 dollars or however much it would be, wouldn't be a permanent solution, just a quick fix.

    And after re-reading the quoted portion above, I don't see why the gentleman feels the need to "break" the law, when he would be legally allowed to donate it to his family member and should do it out of the goodness of his heart.

    I guess, like many issues, the idea of this is a good one in theory, but could have unintended negative consequences.
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  4. That's true, the law of unintended consequences is a very powerful one. However, I don't feel like the other issues raised are a problem. At least with kidney donation, where what you're doing overall is good. From my perspective, who are we to tell a family who is struggling financially that they're not allowed to earn money by helping someone else? They're literally saving someone else's life, and if that can help them with their financial situation as well, that would be wonderful.

    Cars can also be very helpful, and if I were in a bad place financially and sold mine, I might regret it later when I couldn't get a job that was far from my home. It would be the same sort of quick-fix you discuss. That doesn't mean we should ban people from selling cars. Instead we trust them to make the best decision possible.

    In some situations we do ban certain conduct; for example, I can't (legally) sell crack-cocaine or a child to get myself some extra cash. However, in these examples my activities are hurting someone else, whereas with kidney donation someone else is being helped.

    Finally, you have to be a matching donor to donate to someone else, which could be why the father couldn't donate to their child. The idea of donation chains from the longer article is a good way to overcome this, but obviously it's not doing enough as there are still 80,000 people waiting for kidneys right now.

    In summary, I agree that we should look for negative consequences and do our best to eliminate those. Having the government provide the compensation or making it a non-cash compensation (like free healthcare for donors) could help alleviate potential problems. I still feel that we value organ donation and we would be better off as a whole if more of it happened, so we should therefore do something to encourage it.

    Thanks for your feedback / other perspective. As you said previously, it makes me think and I really like that.
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  5. Well, I'm glad you brought this up, because it's an issue I hadn't really thought about before. I still don't feel like I know enough about it to have a firm opinion either way, I can see the rationale of both sides, but I do feel more educated about the issue. So, thanks for that! :)
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  6. I personnally would like to be connected with a buyer for a kidney or other organ. We are about 50,000 in debt, I cannot get hired for love or money here in the US, and I face homelessness. Maybe if you silverspoons here were in dire straights too, you would be willing as I am?
    Don't critisize me, hire me- I am willing to do anything legal or illegal now to pay the rent.
    Be honest everyone- you don't care about me at all- why should you care about my organs?
    hypocritical.
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  7. I agree with Anonymous above. I am facing dire consequences due to the fact that the economy is so bad. I cannot find a job and I apply for at least 16 jobs a week. I really need to find a way that is legal to sell my kidney. HELP
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  8. I think legalizing the market would have 2 negative consequences.

    1) It would incentivize people to steal organs. There is the old urban legend about the man who was out on a hike alone, and next thing he knew, he woke up in a tub of ice with both of his kidneys taken. This seems pretty crazy, but if there were an open market to buy organs I think it's fairly coneivable that a person who is willing to stoop as low as drug dealing, pimping, or murdering for hire, would be willing to take someone's organs and place them on the black market.

    However, I think the main reason we shouldn't is #2:

    2) Basically what money does is redistribute scarce commodities. Those who have more money, get more of the scarce commodity. Having said that, buying organs is often equivalent to buying life. Therefore, legalizing teh trade of organs is akin to creating a society where we decide those with the money are the ones who get to live longer than those without. Now lets take an example of 2 people in need of a life saving organ. One is a 5 year old from a working class family that earns $45,000 a year, this 5 y/o needs a new kidney. The other person is a 75 yearold millionaire who smokes, drinks, and has cancer. Not only does he have cancer but he has a failing kidney. Without the kidney he will die in 2 weeks. With the kidney he will die in 2 years anyway.
    In our current system, the person who goes to the top of the donation list is the 5 year old. But in a market where you can buy kidneys, the millionaire will get one and the 5 year old will not.

    Of course, I do realize that legalizing the market will likely increase the total number of kidneys in the market, which could mean that both of them get the kidney... but either way I think #2 is the reason we as a society steer away from opening the market because we don't like the though that an "undeserving" person should be able to buy more time when a more deserving person must die simply because he has less money. And even if the increase in # of kidneys means more people total will live, there has to be a cut off at some point, and that cut off point is where the controversy will be created that will stop the market from ever opening up.

    Well, that's what I think. And I didn't bother proof reading so I apologize for any typos, or parts where I could have/should have been more concise.
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  9. Interesting thoughts, Greg. One solution for both of these points that you bring up would be for the government to provide an incentive for those who donated. Many of those who need donations are on either Medicare or Medicaid, so the government is paying for all their dialysis and current medical care. The government would save a lot by doing that, and it wouldn't require a change in allocation methods.
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