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In Germany what you describe won’t be possible: organ donation from a living donor is only allowed if both person are quite close to each other (partners, family and so on). Organ donation from dead people is anonymous: the doctors that take the organs out of the dead person doesn’t know who receives them. Only Eurotransplant knows.
I think that’s a very good system. Organs should be given and received as anonymous as possible.
So you guys don't do domino kidney donations? This is something that is sometimes done in the US. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20199504/.
No, we don’t have that here in Germany.
Are you sure Germany doesn't have an altruistic kidney donation program?
This document from 2016 agrees with this assertion (bottom of second page).
It seems such a waste, this podcast makes it sound an amazing idea https://freakonomics.com/podcast/make-me-a-match-update/
From the paper:
The legal basis for a living donation in Germany is a relationship or close personal connection between donor and recipient.
You're donating an organ, or you're not.
This ain't fuckin' Burger King. You can't have it your way!
It would've made more sense if you were talking about organ receiver. I should have a say in not giving my organs to oil tycoons.
That is literally the opposite of being altruistic, so no.
From my point of view you've just given an excellent argument against the philosophy that I will call, for lack of a better term, "beep-boop utilitarianism". Allowing such a donation has an immediate, tangible and quantifiable benefit; but the norm you are eroding by doing so is much more valuable, and may be impossible to renegotiate if lost.
I've heard of "Short-term utilitarianism", but I like yours better.
No.
If you’re alive then you’re totally be within your rights to choose who to voluntarily help or donate something to. Don’t like the look of that homeless guy for whatever reason? Don’t give them money. You can be as racist or misogynistic or otherwise generally cunty as you like, and as long as it’s your personal money/time/organs and you keep quiet about your selection criteria you’re unlikely to have a problem.
However once you’re dead, if you want your dickish restrictions honoured then you have to write them down somewhere. And any organisation set up to manage organ donations that agrees to facilitate such restrictions is likely to find themselves on the pointy end of a discrimination lawsuit at some point.
The question here is about a voluntary kidney donation from a living patient.
What conditions are you imagining in which a donor is living but not aware of specifically who would be receiving the organ before agreeing? Tests need to be done to ensure compatibility, and a kidney is a lot to ask and probably wouldn't be agreed to unless it helps a loved one.
I feel like this is a strange premise whose goal is trying to try to move the line little by little until people are willing to say they're a little bit racist/sexist. Or until people are willing to admit they don't think others should have control over decisions made about their bodies. Be honest about your ends here instead of dreaming up fictions that make so little sense the answers are unproductive.
No, if it became a tool of power it would cease to be an altruistic donation
In practical terms it's very normal for people to only donate a kidney because they have a specific recipient in mind.
Trying to say no, "you can not donate your kidney only to your son, you have to make the kidney available to everyone" does not make sense.
If you are running an anonymous donation facility then practicality comes into play. How realistic is it to keep tabs on all kinds of weird preferences? Matches are already hard enough. And how do you disclose responsibly?
From an ethical point of view you need to look at the big picture. It is not enough to say that this is a kidney that someone will get but would not if you don't allow discrimination. You have to also think about whether such a policy will encourage people specifying who otherwise wouldn't. And then a growing imbalance in recipients.
Certainly not.
Excellent question. I have to put myself in their shoes. I don't want my kidneys going to.. a member of the North Korean dictatorship, or the CCP. Or any of the elite in Dubai. I don't see anything wrong with my preferences there, so we would have to allow people to discriminate indiscriminately. I guess I would have to be in favour. There are people that I think are more deserving than others. Jeffery Dahmer isn't getting my organs.
We've decided long ago that bad people surviving is better than good people dying.
The way I see it you are under no obligation to bite that bullet just because of your understandable sentiment. It may be true that e.g. "My organs won't go to Catholics" and "My organs won't go to serial killers" are two sentences that have a similar structure, but this doesn't at all mean they have the same moral weight, or that we as a society are compelled in some way to treat them equally.
TBH I'd rather donate to a serial killer that can realistically harm a dozen of people at most, than a person willfully supporting a global child molestation ring harming thousands annually and holding back the society for centuries.
What a deplorable take. Is the 10-year-old child living in the USA who says "I love my country" morally responsible for the war in Iraq? Is the 10-year-old Saudi Arabian saying "I love my country" morally responsible for 9/11? By what mechanism does your standard spare any human being at all, ever, from total moral condemnation?
A 10-year-old isn't a willful supporter of these causes.
The CCP doesn't need your kidneys, they harvest them from the Uyghurs.
it's always projection with you racists https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64488678
The CCP is not a race.
I don't know what CCP is, but I do know that vast majority of people in China support the Communist Party of China, and that all the western smears against China are rooted in projection of things that are actually happening in the west.
No. Organ "donation" after death should be compulsory. For living donors there should be a publicly funded bounty system where you either take the money or not. Donors and recipients don't get to be picky.
Compulsory is a bit much, but an opt-out system would be a good solution.
Hmmm okay, but it has to be difficult to opt-out, kind of like how conscientious objectors have to go through a whole process to get out of military service.
Why shouldn’t people be able to opt out? I opted out. This is my body not yours. We’re not all in this together.
Because living people who are sick might need those organs, which would otherwise just go to waste in your corpse. Also, it good to have a steady supply of organs from the deceased in order to avoid perverse and exploitative market situations.
The very fact you raise the possibility of perverse or exploitative markets means there’s cause for mistrust in any donor arrangement. We live in a capitalist world and here you are devaluing my body for who, some CEO? Lisa Marie Presley inherits a catalogue of copyrighted content and revenue streams but my family can’t get a penny for saving someone’s life?
Organ donation is a wonderful thing and I understand why our systems are “opt-in” by default but why can’t I opt out, if I don’t trust society?
You're kind of talking about different things. Copyright should of course be abolished along with all private property. I don't rule out compensation to your estate for organs harvested after death and there should definitely be a public bounty/reward system to encourage the living to donate.
You shouldn't be able to opt out, or at least it should be very difficult to do so, because when you are dead what you have a say in that affects the living should be very limited, because those organs won't matter to you anymore, and because those organs might matter very much to living people. Whether you trust society or not doesn't matter anymore when you are dead.
Women, no. Gingers, yes. Jews, no.
Being ginger is not a protected class, so there is no legal restriction on descriminating (so long as you don't successfully argue that gingers are a race, eg Scottish, but that's a stretch).
However morally no, you shouldn't have a say in it. Either way, usually you'll be dead when the decision is made. Maybe not with kidneys, although with kidneys you tend to know who you're giving it to - I don't think anyone just randomly donates a kidney, like you would give blood.
I don’t think anyone just randomly donates a kidney, like you would give blood
You would be wrong about that, in 2021 more than 450 people in the US anonymously donated a kidney to a non-familiy member (source). This is the scenario I'm asking about. One of the arguments given is that just as we allow monetary donations to specific groups of people, why not organs.
I think the conditions of anonymously giving it away would preclude the ability to discriminate. You'll likely have to sign something saying as much.
This is the scenario I'm asking about.
Nobody knew your scenario before you explained it in detail. It is simply not happening.
Organisations don't want to be bothered with such restrictions from a donor. Their principles are: fair and anonymous. It is hard enough already this way.
Nobody knew your scenario before you explained it in detail.
I thought that "altruistic organ donor" was a well understood concept, I was wrong.
It is simply not happening.
You're factually wrong on that aspect.
I was wrong
So, what does it tell you?
You're factually wrong on that aspect.
Because of 450 cases in some foreign country? Don't be ridiculous.
What about a living donor who decides to give a kidney or part of the liver?
