An extreme version of this is: What should the German health service do if someone says they are willing to donate a kidney as long as it doesn’t go to a Jew?
On the one hand, nobody is forced to donate a kidney and by forbidding this we’re making things worse for an innocent patient. On the other hand, it can be seen as the state sanctioning this kind of discrimination.
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/.
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/
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.
No, if it became a tool of power it would cease to be an altruistic donation
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.
