USA Today reports on a study showing that payments to donors would significantly increase the supply of kidneys available for transplant. Such a system potentially could save thousands of lives per year, so it is perplexing that statists are so viscerally opposed. The only interpretation I can come up with – which I admit is very uncharitable – is that they are willing to let people die because they are myopically fixated on equity. No system is acceptable, in their minds, unless it results in equal death rates by income class and equal kidney donations by income class. Or am I missing a more benign explanation?
Paying people for living kidney donations would increase the supply of the organs and would not result in a disproportionate number of poor donors, a study by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center concludes. The study, published this month in the Annals of Internal Medicine, asked 342 participants whether they would donate a kidney with varying payments of $0, $10,000 and $100,000. The study called for a real-world test of a regulated payment system. …Though it is illegal to buy or sell any organ in the USA, payments are accepted for those who become surrogate mothers, donate eggs or participate in clinical research, Halpern says. …Last year, 6,475 people died while on the waiting list for an organ transplant, and 4,476 were waiting for a kidney transplant, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, part of the Health and Human Services Administration. “There’s no real reason why that model has to be continued,” Halpern says of the current system. “There’s nothing intrinsically unique about organ donation that requires it to be a truly altruistic act.”
[…] I’ve repeatedly written that people should have the right to sell their organs, I obviously think they should be able to […]
[…] first wrote about allowing markets for body parts back in 2009 and […]
[…] I’ve written about the desirability of market-based organ transplants (see here, here, and here), I realize some people will instinctively object because selling one’s organs is somehow […]
[…] 2010, I speculated that a knee-jerk fixation on the wrong kind of equality might be part of the answer. The current […]
[…] written before on the topic of allowing organ sales, including a post on some polling data showing how a free market would save lives, so you won’t be surprised that I find this short video very […]
As the death toll from the organ shortage mounts, public opinion will eventually support paying for human organs. Changes in public policy will then follow.
In the mean time, there is an already-legal way to put a big dent in the organ shortage — allocate donated organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die. UNOS, which manages the national organ allocation system, has the power to make this simple policy change. No legislative action is required.
Americans who want to donate their organs to other registered organ donors don’t have to wait for UNOS to act. They can join LifeSharers, a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. Membership is free at http://www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88. There is no age limit, parents can enroll their minor children, and no one is excluded due to any pre-existing medical condition.
Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. Non-donors should go to the back of the waiting list as long as there is a shortage of organs.
I know that this is an incredibly heated issue, but I think it is also interesting to note that there is no difference in life expectancy between those with one kidney and those with both intact. For the sake of argument, as a woman I am told that no one can tell me what to do with my body a la the abortion issue. Is it logical that the argument doesn’t extend to my organs? Would make for an interesting debate!