Sunday
10Dec2006
I'm Gonna Make Him an Offer He Can't Refuse
Sunday, December 10, 2006 at 10:31PM
James Taylor, the author of Stakes and Kidneys: Why Markets In Human Body Parts are Morally Imperative (which, by the way, makes a wonderful and thoughtful stocking stuffer), published an essay in this month's Journal of Medical Ethics confronting the single most popular argument of those who oppose the introduction of incentives to increase living organ donation: the poor will be exploited.
Overlooking the paternalistic and insulting nature of this argument, Taylor writes:
Overlooking the paternalistic and insulting nature of this argument, Taylor writes:
Despite the initial plausibility of this argument, there are three reasons to reject it. Firstly, the advantages of legalising markets in human kidneys would probably outweigh its possible disadvantages. Secondly, if it is believed that no such coercion can ever be tolerated, markets in only those human kidneys that fail to do away with coercion should be condemned. Finally, if coercion is genuinely opposed, then legalising kidney markets should be supported rather than opposed, for more people would be coerced (ie, into not selling) were such markets to be prohibited.What is ominous is the ease with which these obstructionist bioethicists go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. They hold resolutely to their position despite a record of failure and pending disaster so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments