[Avodah] Murder?

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 01:00:46PM -0800, Harry Maryles wrote:
: What are the ethics of this billionaire offering a million dollars to
: anyone with a compatible kidney to donate it directly to him? There
: are people who might not otherwise be willing to donate a kidney that
: will now trip all over themselves at a chance to 'sell' their 'spare'
: kidney for a million dollars.

I don't see a moral problem, if this saves a life, poses only a small
risk to the donor (most people don't end up losing function in a kidney,
so one really is spare), and the kidney wouldn't have gone to someone
else so that you have to ask about the relative color of blood.

The only problem I could see is if the resulting anarchy or some other
unintended consequence gets in the way of the orderly disbersal of organs,
and thereby would cost lives in the long run. We may need to sacrifice
those who could leap-frog over the system in order to have a system
that overall would save far more. I don't know enough of the logistics
to know if this is a real problem, or not.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The trick is learning to be passionate in one's
micha at aishdas.org        ideals, but compassionate to one's peers.
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