>I fear that you've been trapped by the vivid image of an impoverished, innocent, victimized person being blackmailed in a dark alley into selling their kidneys (picture someone like Fantine from Les Misérables) and try to stop that at all costs.
No. That is not true.
>It is most certainly evil if there is a perfectly good spare kidney just sitting around in a nearby abdomen...
You seem to imply that it is "spare" and "just sitting around", doing nothing, which is not the case. I somehow find that statement extremely disturbing...
>Human life is intrinsically valuable because of the consciousness and experiences of the mind which is enabled by functioning organs. If the organs cease to function, that does not reduce the value of that life, or imply that the 'time was right': every death is a tragedy.
On a bigger sense, human life is worth as much as any other life. You are saying it is worth more because of "consciousness" and "experience"? I am sorry, I am not sure what to make of it or how it is relavant to the discussion..
>Demand in this market will have a very small cap. You can't sell more kidneys than there are people who need transplants.
Oh. Wait till this market is in full bloom, and we can see transplantation "prescribed" quite frequently...
>The donor of a kidney will be unlikely to suffer a degraded life...
Ok. What happens when the remaining kidney of a poor donor fails? I see you have addressed it in your comment. But you hand waves it by saying it is not a problem if they can afford it, when the whole reason they sold the kidney was they were poor!
>The people in need of a kidney could, in one world, suffer in a hospital bed on a dialysis machine for the short remnant of their life..
People in need of money, of food, of basic necessities of life, of a roof about their head, has been suffering for ages. The rich has their mansions, studio apartments, their suv's and limos. They didn't think that the money they have lying around is "spare", and didn't re-distribute their wealth among the poor and needful...
Now the rich wants to "help" the poor by enabling them to sell their kidneys!!
The alternative to a donor organ market is additional financial incentives to develop and improve implantable artificial organs.
Currently, you need a bulky external machine for hemodialysis. At first, they were available only in hospitals, then in outpatient clinics. Now people can keep such machines at home, and use them as they sleep. I would predict that these machines would first become cheaper, until hitting a cost threshold, then become smaller, until hitting the size of a large suitcase. Then they would have an implantable component, and an external satchel-sized wearable component. Then development would stall until the patents run out.
As dialysis treatment runs about 6% (!) of the Medicare budget, one might think that the US would have a significant incentive to fund research into reducing the cost of treatment for kidney disease. Sadly, this does not appear to be the case.
Most of that money is now going to private dialysis companies that have optimized their business models around the Medicare payment rules. Their incentives are not to improve patient care, but to suck as much federal money out of the trough as possible.
>> I fear that you've been trapped by the vivid image...
> No. That is not true.
I'm glad it's not true for you, but that appeal to emotion is a frequent problem in this and similar debates (terrorism, child safety, . Glad to get that out of the way!
>>> This is not an easy subject, but I think there is nothing immoral about letting a human being die if their organs fail...It can be thought of as being sad. But not immoral or evil.
>> Human life is intrinsically valuable...
> On a bigger sense, human life is worth as much as any other life...I am not sure what to make of it or how it is relevant to the discussion.
Sorry if I was unclear. I was trying to understand and respond to your comment that it's not immoral to let a human being die when their organs fail. I argue that the moral worth of a specimen of homo sapiens is not in the function of their organs, which would lose that value when the organs cease to function, but in the function of their mind. Because that value could be preserved through donation of a kidney, policy which prevents that from happening is an immoral act.
> What happens when the remaining kidney of a poor donor fails? But you hand waves it by saying it is not a problem if they can afford it, when the whole reason they sold the kidney was they were poor!
Kidney transplants for both rich and poor are, and will be, covered by medical insurance or universal health care. Whether you ever need one or not, on average, you will pay your share of approximately 1/350th the cost of a kidney replacement as a member of modern society. In today's market, with expensive dialysis frequently used in place of unavailable kidneys, that results in about 6% of the Medicaid budget going to treatment for kidney failure. I expect that this cost would be reduced if kidneys were more available.
> Now the rich wants to "help" the poor by enabling them to sell their kidneys!! Oh the hypocrisy!
This is not hypocrisy in the slightest. The rich and the poor want to help the rich and the poor by making everyone's kidneys available to everyone that needs them. I'm both healthier and wealthier than the general population, and would welcome the opportunity to donate a kidney, similar to the fashion in which I donate blood on a regular basis. But my current medical insurance will not pay for a living donation to anyone who is not a family member or friend, and I could have higher insurance costs in the future if I volunteered to give one of mine away, to say nothing of the small risk I would incur. I am wealthy, but not so wealthy that I can afford to donate my kidney, donate the cost of the procedure, and donate the cost of future insurance. I'm not suggesting the donation should make people rich, but rather that it would let them break even.
No. That is not true.
>It is most certainly evil if there is a perfectly good spare kidney just sitting around in a nearby abdomen...
You seem to imply that it is "spare" and "just sitting around", doing nothing, which is not the case. I somehow find that statement extremely disturbing...
>Human life is intrinsically valuable because of the consciousness and experiences of the mind which is enabled by functioning organs. If the organs cease to function, that does not reduce the value of that life, or imply that the 'time was right': every death is a tragedy.
On a bigger sense, human life is worth as much as any other life. You are saying it is worth more because of "consciousness" and "experience"? I am sorry, I am not sure what to make of it or how it is relavant to the discussion..
>Demand in this market will have a very small cap. You can't sell more kidneys than there are people who need transplants.
Oh. Wait till this market is in full bloom, and we can see transplantation "prescribed" quite frequently...
>The donor of a kidney will be unlikely to suffer a degraded life...
Ok. What happens when the remaining kidney of a poor donor fails? I see you have addressed it in your comment. But you hand waves it by saying it is not a problem if they can afford it, when the whole reason they sold the kidney was they were poor!
>The people in need of a kidney could, in one world, suffer in a hospital bed on a dialysis machine for the short remnant of their life..
People in need of money, of food, of basic necessities of life, of a roof about their head, has been suffering for ages. The rich has their mansions, studio apartments, their suv's and limos. They didn't think that the money they have lying around is "spare", and didn't re-distribute their wealth among the poor and needful...
Now the rich wants to "help" the poor by enabling them to sell their kidneys!!
Oh the hypocrisy!