Bodies for Sale

12 August 2010

我们本周的话题是“出售的尸体”。在大多数发达国家,买卖重要器官是非法的。但全球有一个蓬勃发展的人体器官黑市。器官买卖是否应该合法化并纳入地上经济?还是说,把人体及其器官仅仅当作商品就有本质上的错误?

One thing for sure. There is huge pent-up demand for body parts. In the US alone, according to the National Kidney Foundation, over ninety-five thousand people are currently waiting for an organ transplant, with another four thousand added to the wait list every month. In 2006, more than six thousand people died awaiting life-saving organ transplants. And of the twelve thousand dying people who could donate organs, only about half actually do. The numbers are just staggering – utterly staggering. In 2002, the World Health Organization pegged the number of people suffering from diabetes around the world at a hundred seventy one million. By 2030 the number will climb to nearly four hundred million. Those folks are prime candidates for kidney transplants.

因此,全球对人体器官的需求很大,而捐献器官的供应却不足。难怪会有一个繁荣的黑市?传说一个健康的肾脏可以卖到15万美元。这是一个非常诱人的数字。这难道不表明,如果人体器官市场开放、合法、规范,那么供应问题就会消失吗?我们可能会做很多事情来缓解第三世界的贫困。

但传说和现实并不总是一致的。就拿一个肾的标价为15万来说。这样的数字有时会在网络聊天室里被扔来扔去,但实际情况却大不相同。在菲律宾或伊朗这样的地方——买卖器官并不违法——一个肾脏的价格相当低——最多几千美元。的确,黑市经纪人有时会向富裕的西方客户收取高达9万美元的第三世界肾脏费用。但是,这些钱几乎没有一分钱能送到捐献肾脏的人手中。

You might think that the problem is the black market itself, but it also could be that even an open global market in kidneys might do more to enrich those who exploit the poor than it would do to help the poor themselves. Even open global organ markets have great potential to exploit the poor and desperate around the world by turning their bodies into repositories of spare parts for the well-off, without really doing much to improve their own lot. After all, not many middle or upper class Westerners are going to sell a kidney for a few thousand bucks -- even on a legal open market. And not many of the world’s desperately poor are going to be able to afford to buy kidneys on ANY market. So even in an open market the burden would fall disproportionately on the poor, while the benefit would fall disproportionately on the rich.

因此,这种情况在道德上非常令人担忧。这似乎完全颠覆了我内心的平等自由主义。此外,把自己身体的各个部位仅仅看作商品,这本身就令人讨厌。我倾向于成为一个康德主义者,而我内心的康德主义者倾向于反对把我自己的身体当作一件单纯的东西,仅仅是一种工具,像其他商品一样被买卖。康德可能会说,器官买卖本质上是错误的。当你出售器官时,你只是把自己当作一种手段,而不是目的本身。康德认为你应该永远把自己和他人当作目的。在这些问题上,我的直觉几乎总是支持康德。

当然,这比康德想象的要复杂得多。例如,当我出售我的劳动力时,我允许我的雇主仅仅把我当作一种手段。如果出卖肉体劳动在道德上是可以的,那为什么出卖身体器官在道德上就不行呢?我不确定康德学派对这个问题有一个满意的答案。

We’ll put that question and much more to our guest, Debra Satz, author of the very fine book,为什么有些东西不应该出售:在市场的限制下。Tune in to see what she has to say.

Comments(9)


Guest's picture

Guest

Thursday, August 12, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

Take a look at Al Roth's blog: http://marketdesig

Take a look at Al Roth's blog:
http://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/
He is an economist who designs transactions for repugnant exchanges.

Guest's picture

Guest

Thursday, August 12, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

As the death toll from the organ shortage mounts,

As the death toll from the organ shortage mounts, public opinion will eventually support paying for human organs. Changes in public policy will then follow.
In the mean time, there is an already-legal way to put a big dent in the organ shortage -- allocate donated organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die. UNOS, which manages the national organ allocation system, has the power to make this simple policy change. No legislative action is required.
Americans who want to donate their organs to other registered organ donors don't have to wait for UNOS to act. They can join LifeSharers, a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. Membership is free atwww.lifesharers.org或致电1-888-ORGAN88。没有年龄限制,父母可以让他们的未成年子女入学,没有人因为任何先前的医疗状况而被排除在外。
Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. Non-donors should go to the back of the waiting list as long as there is a shortage of organs.
David J. Undis
Executive Director
LifeSharers
www.lifesharers.org

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, August 14, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

There needs to be some way to compensate donors fo

There needs to be some way to compensate donors for their time, risk, and kindness. My brother recently received a kidney from a co-worker. It would have been nice to pay for some of the donor's lost work hours, childcare so his wife could spend time with him, maybe a hotel nearby so she didn't have to travel so far, dinner for her. But no gifts at all are allowed.
尸体捐献者的葬礼费用应该是固定的。活着的捐赠者应支付与捐赠有关的所有费用,但不得超过一个固定的数额。这使他们的家庭能够养活他们;恢复时间(顺便说一句,肾脏受伤了);差旅费用;照顾孩子……
事实上,捐赠者必须用自己的假期/病假时间来捐赠,虽然实际的医疗费用是从我弟弟的保险中支付的,但所有的相关费用都是他的。这是不公平的。
I think expenses up to, let's say, $10,000 should be allowed, or funeral costs up to the same. It isn't payment for the organ, it's an allowance to absorb the costs of donating...

Guest's picture

Guest

Sunday, September 5, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

One of Professor Satz's central arguments is that

One of Professor Satz's central arguments is that legalizing the sale of body parts would impose a cost on people who do NOT want to sell their body parts. I take it this is just an opportunity cost (if I sold my kidney, I'd make some money, so when I don't sell my kidney, I have that much less money).
But creating an economic opportunity doesn't result in my actually losing anything at all. It is my choice not to sell my kidney either legally or illegally, and so even while organ sales are illegal, I have less money than I would if I sold my kidney. Regardless of the legality of organ sales, I don't actually lose anything I have when I encounter an opportunity cost.
I'm not at all confident that organ sales should be legal, but I don't think this opportunity cost argument is a good reason to keep organ sales illegal. Then again, I'm not an economist.

Guest's picture

Guest

Wednesday, September 8, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

Although I do agree with your post, I have my own

Although I do agree with your post, I have my own reservations.

Guest's picture

Guest

Thursday, September 9, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

To my thinking, the social morality (and the legal

To my thinking, the social morality (and the legality) of organ selling is and should be intrinsically tied to the propensity and severity of the fraud and exploitation that it will entail.
A certain amount of fraud or exploitation is inherent in the market, as anyone whose ever bought a packet of sea monkeys, or taken a telemarketing job can testify. This is why we have wage and truth-in-advertising laws.
But in most cases, the consequences are relatively minor. If you take a job that sucks, you can quit. If you buy a bunch of brine shrimp imagining that they would form a fun-loving, utopian civilization before your eyes, you're only out a couple of bucks, which you can right off to experience. Not so with an organ transplant.
If you sell your kidney and later realize that shortening your life by ten years wasn't worth the used camarro you bought with the proceeds, it's too late. There's nothing you can do (short of buying someone else's kidney, perhaps) that will mitigate the damage that's already done.
If you sell a kidney under duress or in following self-serving medical advice from someone looking to buy your kidney, the organ is gone, your lifespan is considerably shortened and there's nothing you can do about it. You can't simply chalk it up to experience and you can't quit being a former kidney donor. You can sue the person or organization that defrauded you, but even if you win, that won't bring your kidney back. The simple truth of the matter is that when it comes to organ-selling, there's no way to adequately address the consequences of someone being swindled out of a kidney. Any legal protection that matters must happen on the front end of that transaction.
如果你允许人们将他们救命的器官变卖,人们就会有很大的动机去欺骗和利用它们。以这种方式受害的后果是如此可怕,鉴于这些事实,我认为一个社会有道德义务和法律权利介入,监管甚至禁止器官买卖,而其他更良性的交易不会这样做。

Guest's picture

Guest

Friday, October 8, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

It is of some interest, I think, to consider that

It is of some interest, I think, to consider that the entire enterprise of organ donation and transplantation was the stuff of science fiction, not so many decades ago. Be that as it may, there are numerous arguments, for and against this miracle of modern medical science.
Certain fundamentalists may argue against it on religious and/or moralistic grounds. Science, on the other hand, is more pragmatic and generally unfettered by religious dogmas and moral high ground: we have done it; we can do it; it extends lives (for some or many); and, some folks (or their medical insurers) can or will pay the price.
Black marketeering is only one of many ways in which humanity engages in corruptive behavior. We should not be so shocked, because it is also a part of world economy.
An ex-coworker "gave up a kidney" for his brother, about fifteen or twenty years ago. He died before I retired. I think the brother (younger and diabetic) died also. We do the best we can with what we have. Sometimes.

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Friday, October 8, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

The horse is out of the barnyard and the cat is o

The horse is out of the barnyard and the cat is out of the bag---assuming that said cat was ever in the bag in the first place. It is way too late for wailing and gnashing of teeth. And it is similarly late to be asking ourselves whether organ donation and transplantation are morally reprehensible or merely technologically factual. It just does not mean beans for us to ask these sorts of questions now.
Of course, it is fun for the agitators, debaters and quibblers amongst us and it provides fuel for the fires of fundamentalism. All of this too shall pass as medicine advances beyond the need for organ donations and successfully grows replacement parts for humans. As most people know, this has already begun. Those of us who are unafraid of such forms of progress would like to see it. Some of us will---probably not yours truly, however.
Let us move on to some problem which we can solve and/or ought to solve, shall we? Black markets have been with us since biblical times and before. Why would we think they are something we can eliminate? I can't imagine---can you?

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, October 16, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

捐赠器官是非常光荣的。Buying them mea

捐赠器官是非常光荣的。购买它们意味着有些人不在同一个公平的竞争环境中。富人应该得到更多吗?这是你必须问自己的问题。