To Reenie Harris and her daughter, Natasha Kruse, the question posed by others seems backward:
“Why would you give your kidney to a perfect stranger?”
To this mother-daughter pair, the question, they say, should be, “Why wouldn't you give your kidney to a perfect stranger?”
O'Brien continues:
In the past, kidneys were donated one to one, usually on behalf of a relative or close friend, but they had to match blood and tissue type. The only other option was to languish for months or years on a waiting list for a kidney from a deceased donor.
With living donors a better option, kidney chains began a few years ago. Friends and relatives who are not matches for their loved ones can donate a kidney to someone for whom they are a match, in exchange for someone else donating a kidney directly to their loved one. But virtually all chains begin with an altruistic donor — a stranger willing to donate a kidney just because it’s the right thing to do.
Without meaning to denigrate what these two women did, I couldn't disagree more with the moral reasoning here. "The right thing to do" is to act self-interestedly, not altruistically. The fact that altruistic self-sacrifice for the needs of others forms the basis for what is generally considered to be "right" stands in the way of another option—one that would encourage many more life-saving anonymous donors to step forward, but is cruelly forbidden by law—monetary compensation for organ donation. It is altruism that stands behind such legal roadblocks to life-saving organ transplants.
How many people have to continue to languish and die waiting for organs because of the fallacious and vicious notion that "the right thing to do" is self-sacrifice rather than profit from doing others good? If the goal is to expand the number of people willing to give organs to strangers and thus save lives—an eminently worthy one—we should demand the repeal of the vicious 1984 "National Organ Transplantation Act" and all other laws that ban or restrict compensatory organ transplantation between consenting adults of sound mind. The government has no valid business infringing the inalienable rights of donors and recipients to voluntarily contract to mutual benefit.
As I noted in the comments, there is another option—one that would encourage many more life-saving anonymous donors to step forward, but is cruelly forbidden by law: monetary compensation for organ transplantation.
It is altruism that stands behind such legal roadblocks to life-saving organ transplants.
It is altruism that stands behind such legal roadblocks to life-saving organ transplants.
Why must organ donation be a lose-win relationship, with the donor getting nothing while the recipient gains at the expense of the self-sacrifice of the donor, his benefactor? Why must only the beneficiary profit? Why not donor and beneficiary alike? There is no rationally valid reason why this last shouldn't be so.
To be sure, compensation can and does take the spiritual form. Organ donation to a valued friend or relative is a gain or “profit” for the donor because the donor is helping to keep a personally valued relationship alive, well, and in his life. But why is monetary or material compensation not equally morally valid? In fact donor compensation in both spiritual or material form is morally valid, because the best kind of human relationship is a win-win relationship, where no self-sacrifice—no loser—is involved on either side.
The morally valid question is the first one: “Why would you give your kidney to a perfect stranger?” Legalizing material compensation would assure plentiful moral incentive for strangers to step up, because they could answer, "for money"—whether as a self-interested means of bettering their own lives or of bestowing something to valued beneficiaries after death.
To be sure, compensation can and does take the spiritual form. Organ donation to a valued friend or relative is a gain or “profit” for the donor because the donor is helping to keep a personally valued relationship alive, well, and in his life. But why is monetary or material compensation not equally morally valid? In fact donor compensation in both spiritual or material form is morally valid, because the best kind of human relationship is a win-win relationship, where no self-sacrifice—no loser—is involved on either side.
The morally valid question is the first one: “Why would you give your kidney to a perfect stranger?” Legalizing material compensation would assure plentiful moral incentive for strangers to step up, because they could answer, "for money"—whether as a self-interested means of bettering their own lives or of bestowing something to valued beneficiaries after death.
How many people have to continue to languish and die waiting for organs because of the fallacious and vicious notion that "the right thing to do" is self-sacrifice rather than profit from doing others good? If the goal is to expand the number of people willing to give organs to strangers and thus save lives—an eminently worthy one—we should demand the repeal of the vicious 1984 "National Organ Transplantation Act" and all other laws that ban or restrict compensatory organ transplantation between consenting adults of sound mind. The government has no valid business infringing the inalienable rights of donors and recipients to voluntarily contract to mutual benefit.
When Altruism Isn't Moral—Sally Satel
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