Kidney on eBay Flashcards
Define commodification
a transformation from non-commercial social interactions to commercial transactions.
Discuss the organ trade
The Mechanisms of Organ Trafficking
- Kidney broker deals with seller and takes cut
- Recipient comes from overseas and goes to transplant hospital
- Recipient may believe that seller receives significantly more money than they do: a lopsided idea of distributing wealth and giving back
- Seller and recipient are operated on together
Alternatively, kidney is taken from prisoner, or during intercurrent medical or surgical treatment for an itinerant or homeless person.
Can become normalised in certain communities.
## Trafficking
requires significantly more effort. Local recruiters make contact with the victim-donor, who then arranges the negotiation between donor and recipient, and funds the blood work to ensure compatibility.
The broker then arranges for the transplantation procedure to occur in health facilities, in another country.
Articulate arguments for and against the organ trade
Navigating the conflicting ethical standpoints:
- the recipient’s right to good health
- the seller’s right to enter into a commercial transaction
- the altruism argument
The above arguments ignore an uncomfortable truth: the underlying context of great societal inequality, where one person’s pursuit of better health can lead to another’s exploitation.
Victim’s consequences
- deterioration in health
- no real economic gain, limited earnings, workplace discrimination, limited opportunities
- social shame
- regret
Which of the following is true in relation to commodification?
A. Commodification refers to the capacity of a would-be recipient to buy a kidney or other organ
B. Commodification only occurs when there is an exchange of money
C. Commodification practices are unethical for the medical profession
D. Commodification is allowed if the organ has a duplicate in good condition (eg a functioning kidney or ovary)
E. Commodification does not occur if the organ is donated as a gift
E. Commodification is the transformation of relationships, formerly untainted by commerce, into commercial relationships, relationships of buying and selling. By definition, if it is a gift relationship, it’s not commodification.
A. is wrong because it’s more than buying an organ – commodification can occur through trade of bodies, as used to occur with bodies for dissection.
B. is wrong, because the commercial relationship can exist through non-financial means (eg you could provide accommodation in exchange for a kidney)
C. is wrong because it’s not necessarily unethical; commodification, as we have seen, is intrinsic to medicine, it’s in its Cartesian dualist lifeblood.
D. although you wouldn’t donate a kidney if you didn’t have another good one, this is irrelevant to whether or not it’s commodification
Commodification itself predates organ transplant technology, but the possibilities of commodification have increased in the late twentieth century. List the factors involved in commodification, and why it may have increased over the last thirty years.
- Philosophy Cartesian dualism
- Social - Increasing social and economic inequality (creates new markets and sellers)
- Technology – anti-rejection technology, organ transplant technology, technology that can keep you alive with a failing organ waiting for organ to become available
I have chronic renal failure, and am on dialysis and a waiting list for transplants. My blood group is 0+.
List pros and cons of the following methods of obtaining a kidney
Wait for one to become available Honorable. No queue-jumping for you! The wait will probably be long. In the meantime you might die or your health might deteriorate and you would be unsuitable for transplants.
Ask a relative to give you one Gives the relative the opportunity to do some “rescure” work. Potential to fall out with this family member ultimately. Will be oversighted by family member making sure they are looking after “our” kidney.
Advertise in the paper for one, and offer to pay university fees or to rent a house for the donor Might possibly be quite rapid, and you get to meet the donor. Not legal to pay for a kidney in Australia, however you dress it up as payment in kind.
Locate the Jesus Christians and ask one of them to donate Legal, provided the Jesus Christian follower has given assent. ?Guilt if kidney doesn’t work out.
Arrange to go to Pakistan for a transplant Likely to be rapid. Quality of work, donor may not be paid fairly. Aftercare may be non-existent.
Pay someone to steal a kidney from a drugged backpacker No positives for this one. Illegal and monstrous. You will go directly to jail.
Grow your own No one is exploited (NB: not the case if you pay someone else for stem cells or want to grow it in their body) Not possible currently – may be in future but research to implementation gap still needs to be bridged
