Week 8 - kidney sales - Profesor Boyd Notes for Quiz 3 PDF

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Profesor Boyd
Notes for Quiz 3 ...

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Lecture – Refuse to Support the Illegal Organ Trade 

Kidney Sales o Decrease shortage of willing donors  Decreases amount of people waiting for kidneys o Voluntary action and individual preferences  We are better off by letting the market happen o Ownership of one’s organs o What are the arguments against kidney sales?

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Exploits the Poor o Gives an option that vendors later regret  Run through money they received and out a kidney o May involve coercion  Force a person (women with less freedom, husband tells her she has to for the family) o Women and children are seen as “chattel” in certain places in the world

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Discourages Altruistic Giving o The authors believe that kidney sales will discourage altruistic giving o “Why give it away for free when I can get paid for it”  People will forget about charitable acts

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Commercializes the Body o Undercuts human dignity o We must never treat another person as a means only

o … as commodity to be bought and sold  Value is given in the market place 

Ineffective Regulation o Kidney sales cannot be effectively regulated o Why expect developing countries to be able to afford to implement effective regulations?

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Exploits the Poor o Claim: Kidney sales would exploit the poor o Would produce a flow of kidneys from poorer to wealthier segments of society o Response: kidney sales may be best option open to some persons o Increasing the number of options open to a person cannot make that person worse off o The poorer the person, the better the option

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Informed Consent o Claim: potential kidney vendors are “too uneducated” to know the risks o Thus, potential kidney vendors would not be able to give informed consent o Response: potential vendors can be educated about the risks o Insulting to think that an adult person cannot learn of the risks of becoming a kidney vendor, even if the person is very poor

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Fairness o Claim: unfair for wealthier individuals to have privileges not available to the poor

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o Unfair if receiving a kidney is not available to everyone who needs a new kidney o Response: we do not think the same in other cases of inequalities o Example: private medicine, private school, tennis lessons 

Altruism o Claim: organ donation must be altruistic to be acceptable o Altruistic motivation aims at increasing the welfare of another person o Response: why think that unless some useful action is altruistic, it is better to forbid it altogether o Example: father who sells a kidney to pay for his daughter’s life saving operation

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Undermine Medical Professions o Claim: kidney sales would undermine confidence in the medical professions o Physicians might be motivated to encourage patients to be kidney vendors o Response: physicians now are motivated by profit on the same level (wanting a profitable practice), so why be overly concerned about kidney sales

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Women and Children o Claim: danger that women and children will be coerced to become kidney vendors in certain parts of the world o Response: effective regulations can be put in place

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Slippery Slope o Claim: kidney sales would put us on a slippery slope to selling vital organs

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o Example: selling one’s heart (and so sacrificing one’s life) to save the life of one’s child o Response: it is reasonable to expect that effective regulations can be put in place that would rule out the selling of vital organs

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