[Avodah] Murder?

[Harry Maryles]

The following exchange between RZS and RMF took place on Areivim in an
ongoing debate about various ethical aspects of of organ transplants:

On 15/11/2010 2:33 PM, Michael Feldstein wrote:
>> By agreeing to receive a person's heart or lungs, I believe you are
>> directly authorizing the murder of an individual (assuming you do not
>> belive that brain stem death is halachic death). Those organs would NOT
>> be harvested unless a donor is directly identified and agrees to be the
>> recipient. It's the fact that a good match is identified and the recipient
>> wants the organ that directly triggers the harvesting of the organ to
>> occur. It's much more direct than you are implying. In fact, there have
>> been cases where a brain stem dead person wants to donate organs but
>> because no match is identified, the organs are not harvested. Therefore,
>> you cannot use the argument that the person will be murdered anyway.

On Mon, 11/15/10, Zev Sero <zev at sero.name> wrote:
> How do you *know* in any specific case that there are no other suitable
> recipients, and therefore that if you refuse the organ the murder won't
> happen?

> Furthermore, suppose your friendly neighbourhood mafioso offers outright
> to go out and kill someone in order to procure you a life-saving organ;
> is it really the case that you must give up your life by refusing? He
> is a moral agent, and ein shliach lidvar aveira. It's his decision to
> be a murderer, not yours. You're not committing the murder, you're not
> even asking him to do it, you're merely not telling him not to do it;
> at what point do you say "al titzdak harbeh"? And if you want to be
> a chassid at the expense of your own life, that's one thing; but what
> entitles you to insist that someone else make such a sacrifice, when
> the Torah does not demand it of him?

That generated the following thought -- which I was aksed to post
on Avodah:

Let me pose some other ethical -- and even Halachic questions. Let us
say that someone needs a kidney. Let us further assume that his prognosis
is death without a transplant.

Let us then say that he knows of someone who is a compapitable donor
that can donate one of his kidneys and save his life.

But the potential donor refuses to put himself under the knife since
there is a minimal risk of death. What would you say if the person who
needed the kidney kidnapped the potential donor and forcibly removed a
kidney and had it transplanted into himself. Now both people will live
a long healthy life. What are the ethics of such a scenario?

What recipient were your child?

What about buying a Kidney even though it is against the policy of UNOS
(United Network for Organ Sharing). They believe that money should never
be a factor when deciding who is the recipient of a donated organ. They
say it is unethical and recipients should be prioritized based on
medical need.

HM