Sebelius: I can’t suspend the lung-transplant rules for a dying 10-year-old

[Coyote]

The prohibition against selling organs isn't limited to the United States. Every country in the world prohibits selling body parts. If they allowed the practice, the murder rate would be incomprehensible. As it is, with all the laws and limitations in place, there is still a black market for human organs.

I am not a donor. I would not be a donor. I have no religious reasons. It's a general creep factor and that my body is the only property I am permitted to own (so far) I intend to keep every inch of it to the grave.

But suppose, hypothetically you were allowed to pre-sell your organs. Then something happens in your lifetime that renders those organs useless. You get an incurable STD for instance. Is that not a breach of contract? Organs that are too old are not viable transplant organs. Suppose the one who made money pre selling their organs just lives too long? Should there be a cut off date beyond which you could not take your body parts? Sell your liver and you won't live past 60.

Really good points - it would be a real can of worms. What if you sold your liver and then destroyed it with alcohal?

For me - the "creep factor" exists in the selling of body parts - once I'm dead I'm dead, and have at it

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

An organ market would eliminate the arbitrariness of doctors and bureaucrats sitting around like gods, deciding who will die and who will live.

It isn't arbitrary. The system is designed to provide the maximum benefit to the most people. Allowing this decision to be made by a market means alcoholics with enough money can buy livers, ruin them, and then buy another - all the while denying life to people who have liver disease through no fault of their own. The efficient allocation of organs is hardly something to be decided by who makes the most money, it should be decided by medically qualified individuals with authority granted by our duly elected representatives - as it is now.

 

[eflatminor]

The prohibition against selling organs isn't limited to the United States. Every country in the world prohibits selling body parts. If they allowed the practice, the murder rate would be incomprehensible. .

Horse hockey. Murders to harvest organs happen now BECAUSE there is a black market. With legitimate businesses competing to provide the service, there would be less illegal selling of body parts, not more.

As it is, with all the laws and limitations in place, there is still a black market for human organs.

Which would all but go away with a legitimate market, just as the black market for booze did following the repeal of alcohol prohibition.

I am not a donor. I would not be a donor. I have no religious reasons. It's a general creep factor and that my body is the only property I am permitted to own (so far) I intend to keep every inch of it to the grave.

Your choice. A fucked up, cruel and needlessly hurtful choice, but it's still your choice. That wouldn't change with a free market for transplants.

But suppose, hypothetically you were allowed to pre-sell your organs. Then something happens in your lifetime that renders those organs useless. You get an incurable STD for instance. Is that not a breach of contract?

No, not a "breach of contract" but merely a contractual occurrence that would likely render the contract null and void. So what? Such things can be easily handled contractually.

I suspect most people would enter into such a contract so that in the event of their untimely death, their organs would be harvested and their beneficiaries paid. Good for the family that just lost a member. If a company were to offer payment now in exchange for organs following death, it would up to them to deal with the contractual arrangement. Either way, it would be a contract between two parties. Not your business.

Organs that are too old are not viable transplant organs.

Everyone knows that. The market wouldn't pay for such organs, would they?

Suppose the one who made money pre selling their organs just lives too long?

That's the problem of the company, if they were to offer a pre-payment. Again, not your concern.

Should there be a cut off date beyond which you could not take your body parts? Sell your liver and you won't live past 60

Your body, your choice. Besides, a free market wouldn't be trying to get people to sell body parts before they die, but after. Again, none of this should be your business and certainly not the governments.

 

[eflatminor]

Being paid for it is not likely to change motivation as much as awareness would.

Marxist to the core.

 

[eflatminor]

In my opinion, there is something ethically wrong about selling body parts.

I'm sure that's of great comfort to the people who die because there aren't enough organs, a problem that would be solved, whether you believe it or not, by allowing the selling of body parts.

Typical central planner...if it FEELS right, who cares about the actual results?

 

[eflatminor]

The system is designed to provide the maximum benefit to the most people.

That's true. Of course, the fact it fails miserably to meet demand is something we should just overlook?

Yea, pass.

 

[Coyote]

Being paid for it is not likely to change motivation as much as awareness would.

Marxist to the core.

I'm a firm believer in education.

Marxism:
the system of economic and political thought developed by Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, especially the doctrine that the state throughout history has been a device for the exploitation of the masses by a dominant class, that class struggle has been the main agency of historical change, and that the capitalist system, containing from the first the seeds of its own decay, will inevitably, after the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, be superseded by a socialist order and a classless society.

 

[Coyote]

The system is designed to provide the maximum benefit to the most people.

That's true. Of course, the fact it fails miserably to meet demand is something we should just overlook?

Yea, pass.

Who's overlooking it? Not buying into your false dichotomy does not equal "overlooking"

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

The system is designed to provide the maximum benefit to the most people.

That's true. Of course, the fact it fails miserably to meet demand is something we should just overlook?

Yea, pass.

It fails to meet demand because there is a limited supply of dead people with organs to donate you idiot my lord you are stupid.

 

[Oddball]

An organ market would eliminate the arbitrariness of doctors and bureaucrats sitting around like gods, deciding who will die and who will live.

It isn't arbitrary. The system is designed to provide the maximum benefit to the most people.

And it fails...Miserably.

Allowing this decision to be made by a market means alcoholics with enough money can buy livers, ruin them, and then buy another - all the while denying life to people who have liver disease through no fault of their own.

Only your virulent anti-market bigotry that paints such mythical horror stories.

The efficient allocation of organs is hardly something to be decided by who makes the most money, it should be decided by medically qualified individuals with authority granted by our duly elected representatives - as it is now.

Name the last, no the first, time a monopoly efficiently produced and allocated anything....Bring it.

 

[Katzndogz]

Ohhhh so the sale of organs is the new prohibition! That's going to make a lot of sense.

So far, there has been no business plan from the proponents of the sale of human organs as to how this would work as a commercial enterprise. Unlike the prohibition against alcohol, the seller and the buyer both live. In the sale of healthy human organs, the donor is going to die. The result is the legalization of murder for a good reason.

 

[Oddball]

Ohhhh so the sale of organs is the new prohibition! That's going to make a lot of sense.

So far, there has been no business plan from the proponents of the sale of human organs as to how this would work as a commercial enterprise. Unlike the prohibition against alcohol, the seller and the buyer both live. In the sale of healthy human organs, the donor is going to die. The result is the legalization of murder for a good reason.

There's no politician that would allow such a business model to come to pass....Well, maybe Rand Paul, but that's about it.

And the hyperbole about the legalization of murder is just plain silly....You're starting to sound like Poopypoo.

 

[Coyote]

As it is, with all the laws and limitations in place, there is still a black market for human organs.

Which would all but go away with a legitimate market, just as the black market for booze did following the repeal of alcohol prohibition.

Even with the legal sale of booze or firearms, there is still a substantial black market - particularly firearms. So why do you think it would be any different with organs?

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Ohhhh so the sale of organs is the new prohibition! That's going to make a lot of sense.

So far, there has been no business plan from the proponents of the sale of human organs as to how this would work as a commercial enterprise. Unlike the prohibition against alcohol, the seller and the buyer both live. In the sale of healthy human organs, the donor is going to die. The result is the legalization of murder for a good reason.

I think we have found the one issue we agree on.

 

[Oddball]

The prohibition against selling organs isn't limited to the United States. Every country in the world prohibits selling body parts. If they allowed the practice, the murder rate would be incomprehensible. .

Horse hockey. Murders to harvest organs happen now BECAUSE there is a black market. With legitimate businesses competing to provide the service, there would be less illegal selling of body parts, not more.

There's a black market, I'm sure - but it's self-limiting precisely because it's "black market" and organs are legally available via donation. Once you make the selling of organs legal - the system itself is open to abuse with organs taken illegally and sold legally.

More hyperbole.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

An organ market would eliminate the arbitrariness of doctors and bureaucrats sitting around like gods, deciding who will die and who will live.

It isn't arbitrary. The system is designed to provide the maximum benefit to the most people.

And it fails...Miserably.

By what metric?

Name the last, no the first, time a monopoly efficiently produced and allocated anything....Bring it.

"efficiently produced and allocated" by what metric?

 

[Katzndogz]

Well, there might be a away.

Paris Jackson just tried to kill herself. She is a healthy 15 year old. If we had a mechanism for all potential suicides to go to the suicide center where they will be humanely put down and their organs harvested Jackson would be benefitting who knows how many young people right now.

There was recently some kind of sad story about the number of Veterans who commit suicide every day. Identify them, remove them and put them down too. Victims of bullying who are driven to suicide could easily be identified from social media. They don't like being bullied, harvest them.

We might well have an untapped market where the families could financially benefit from a death that would ordinarily just be an expense.

 

[Oddball]

It isn't arbitrary. The system is designed to provide the maximum benefit to the most people.

And it fails...Miserably.

By what metric?

By the metric that thousands of people die because suitable organs cannot be found.

Name the last, no the first, time a monopoly efficiently produced and allocated anything....Bring it.

"efficiently produced and allocated" by what metric?

You're the economically illiterate drip who invoked the premise of efficient allocation (though production was my addition it's still germane) via monopoly....You tell us.

 

[Katzndogz]

China has plenty of organs available for transplant. They take them from prisoners. Our prisons could be organ farms too.

 

[Oddball]

China has plenty of organs available for transplant. They take them from prisoners. Our prisons could be organ farms too.

China is a communist nation, ferchrissakes!....Your are property of the state there, whether in prison or not.

Try comparing apples to apples, when you can.