trc@houca.UUCP (09/24/83)
Response to David D. Levine's note on organ banks: (net.sf) I see nothing wrong with the organ bank, provided that they do not explicitly or implicitly deceive people into giving up their kidneys. If they take kidneys from people that cannot afford to buy a kidney if their remaining kidney fails, they will have to be extremely careful to make sure that those people understand what they are doing. In order to avoid problems with implicit deception, I would suggest that Dr. Jacobs put a clause in his purchase contracts that says that anyone that sells him a healthy kidney (leaving behind a healthy kidney, of course), has the right to one kidney free of charge, and to purchase a second one with no brokerage fee, if necessary. Since most people that donate kidneys will not later have kidney failure, this should work out OK financially. Thus, even if someone didnt completely understand what they were doing, they wont suffer just because they cant afford the normal price. Also, people would be more likely to donate if such a clause added, and because they could be more certain that others would donate as well, they could be even *more* certain that there would be a kidney available if they needed one. As for Rep. Gore's objection to the poor being used for spare parts for the rich, I think that the above suggestion removes most of the real ethical difficulties from the kidney bank. There seems to be nothing inherently worse about the poor giving organs for use by the rich than there does about the rich giving organs for the poor. After all, it is not the poor as a group that gives the kidney, just the individual, who would be able to get a kidney (or two) back. In fact, with the "two for one" clause, it is even fairer, in that a poor person can donate one kidney with assurance of getting two back, should they be needed. Meanwhile, the rich person would probably not sell a kidney, and so will have to pay full price for them. And of course there is also the remuneration that the poor person will receive in the first place, and that they will keep if they dont need to buy the second kidney. Tom Craver houca!trc
jj@rabbit.UUCP (09/26/83)
Um, given the greed and selfishness of mankind (I except any given individual) it seems to me that the next step after voluntary organ banks is the use of condemned criminals for organs, then as we run short, the use of minor criminals for organs, etc. I think the story of Gil the Arm (Sorry, Mr. Niven) could be prophetic. I DO think that there should be organ banks, but they shouldn't be financially oriented, and they should be carefully controlled. I can see organlegging starting tomorrow...!