My Kidney Challenge

[AionPhanes]

Oh, here's a question...

What if was your heart instead? You can assume that you died for this one. Car crash or something. If you don't want to be an organ donor, should the doctors be able to say, "Forget what they want, let's take it anyway"? Even if your whole family said no, don't take it?

Yes. Saving someone's life trumps a dead persons ownership of their soon to be decaying, or otherwise useless, organ. Even if he had some sort of out of body existence after death (heaven etc..), or transmigrated to a new body, he still wouldn't be able to do anything with it.

If he were alive I would say his right to his organs would be stronger. On the kidney I would say no.

 

[Fantine]

There are cadaver kidneys that would be better than my 66 year old one.

 

[blackribbon]

No, because transplanting a kidney is a major surgery with health ramifications for the donor as well and the recipient...both related to the surgery and to the life after the donation. It isn't a benign event.

 

[blackribbon]

There is a little girl, named Sally. She needs a kidney transplant or she will die.

Do I have the right to force you to give up one of your kidneys to save her life?

Why can't Sally survive on dialysis? Why does she need a transplant to survive?

 

[Kylie]

your question is flawed in that it assumes that God can't heal Sally - if He can create a man from dust, and raise a dead man from the grave after his body has started to decompose, what's a kidney or two?

Which is why we have no one around today that needs a kidney transplant, of course.

Since God has done nothing for the many people who currently need kidney transplants, let's assume that he's not going to do anything for Sally either, okay?

 

[Kylie]

No person speaks for everyone. Each poster only speaks for themselves.
No one is granting anyone the power to speak for others.

Which is why I was asking if everyone agreed. It seems that most people here have the same opinion.

 

[Kylie]

Yes. Saving someone's life trumps a dead persons ownership of their soon to be decaying, or otherwise useless, organ. Even if he had some sort of out of body existence after death (heaven etc..), or transmigrated to a new body, he still wouldn't be able to do anything with it.

If he were alive I would say his right to his organs would be stronger. On the kidney I would say no.

So a living person has more of a right to an organ they can live without than a dying person who can't survive without it?

 

[Kylie]

No, because transplanting a kidney is a major surgery with health ramifications for the donor as well and the recipient...both related to the surgery and to the life after the donation. It isn't a benign event.

I think death is a much more serious ramification...

 

[SkyWriting]

Which is why I was asking if everyone agreed. It seems that most people here have the same opinion.

That sounds like the answer to your question?

 

[SkyWriting]

So a living person has more of a right to an organ they can live without than a dying person who can't survive without it?

I say
lets grab the organs from dying people without permission,
else they can leave the hospital. If you stay, you have to
agree to have your organs harvested, if your dying.

Then your stay is free, maybe?

 

[keith99]

No, because transplanting a kidney is a major surgery with health ramifications for the donor as well and the recipient...both related to the surgery and to the life after the donation. It isn't a benign event.

Yea, it would pretty much mean I'd never boot up for a Rugby match again. I'm not ready for that yet.

 

[~Anastasia~]

If you measure rights according to lives, what is wrong with the next step being - every healthy person has two useable kidneys. You could save two people by harvesting both from the living one. Not only that, but there are innumerable other organs that could be harvested as well. So the death of one person and making full use of his "parts" could save many lives.

If it's ethical to force a person to donate on the basis of how many live, then it's ethical to kill one person so that many can live.

However, I don't agree with this. No, no one has the right to forcibly deprive anyone of organs or life. Human beings ought not be commodities.

Same reason we ought not sell organs. It becomes too much of a temptation to see a person as more "valuable" dead than alive, or could force those in poverty to forfeit their lives for the sake of providing for their loved ones. Barbaric, and an insult to human dignity.

Now, there is nothing wrong with donating, and it ought to be encouraged. But forcible harvesting, sales, and so forth lead us down a dark road.

Is this a serious question?

 

[Tree of Life]

There is a little girl, named Sally. She needs a kidney transplant or she will die.

Do I have the right to force you to give up one of your kidneys to save her life?

Of course not. That didn't seem like much of a challenge. I suppose you think this relates to something more controversial?

 

[Tree of Life]

Oh, here's a question...

What if was your heart instead? You can assume that you died for this one. Car crash or something. If you don't want to be an organ donor, should the doctors be able to say, "Forget what they want, let's take it anyway"? Even if your whole family said no, don't take it?

This is a more interesting question.

Legally, at least in the US, the government does not believe that you have such a right. But the question is more probably whether or not you have a moral right to take the heart. The word "right" here seems awkward. I don't think the doctors have a right to take the heart. Does the sick person have a right to take the heart that they need from a dead person who is no longer using it? I'm not sure. Do the doctors have a moral responsibility to take the dead person's heart in order to save a life? That's more probable. The question would probably center on who the heart belongs to now that the person is dead.

 

[AV1611VET]

There is a little girl, named Sally. She needs a kidney transplant or she will die.

Do I have the right to force you to give up one of your kidneys to save her life?

No.

 

[Butterfly99]

If I was dead I'd be fine with my kidney going to Sally. Till then, no.

 

[Kylie]

No.

A rarely seen clear and unambiguous answer from AV here. Thank you.

 

[bhsmte]

A rarely seen clear and unambiguous answer from AV here. Thank you.

Was there another motivation behind asking this question, besides the question itself?

 

[Kylie]

Okay, so now here's another question...

Why is it that we all agree that a person is not obligated to use parts of their body to keep others alive (even if the person with the useful body parts is dead), but then so many people suddenly change their mind when it's a pregnant woman who is being asked to use a part of her body to keep the life of another going?

Doesn't this seem like hypocrisy?

 

[topcare]

Nope. Nice try advocating murder