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.
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.
That is literally the opposite of being altruistic, so no.
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.
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.
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.
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?
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”
I do not understand the concept of “deserving to live.” I did nothing to deserve life; it was given to me before I could do anything. Some people think that people can forfeit their “right to life” by their actions, but how can someone forfeit a right they never acquired?
I understand killing for practical reasons, in some cases, but claiming that everyone is born with a right to life that can be taken away is incoherent,
Certainly not.
