A comment I left on a CiF piece about kidney transplants:
\”the issue certain CiFers here have with the Iranian system is possibly the additional payments a recipient can make, in addition to one made by the state – this for obvious reasons could inform a decision on who gets an organ. There is no mechanism in place to stop the highest bidder being awarded an organ – it\’s not a sound system.\”
Fair point…..but only if you\’re prepared to accept the corollaries of that point.
The Iranian system works…..they do not have a large group of people slowly dying on dialysis machines. They do not have a long waiting list for kidneys. The system is also hugely cheaper….transplants are cheaper than dialysis after about 18 months.
Now, if you want to say that a cheaper, better system, better in the sense that it is both cheaper and saves more lives, cannot be allowed to happen because of your ethical concerns about rich people being able to benefit from being rich, well, go right ahead.
I\’d just like you to go and make that case in a renal ward. Go explain it to someone dying because dialysis is no longer working and they\’re too far down the list to get a transplant. Lay out your ethical concerns to them. Tell them the truth, what you really believe.
They must die because you think it\’s icky if rich people get to live as well.
You could even take it further. Stand up at the funeral of one of those kidneyless patients. Tell the mourners that it is righteous and just that their loved one died so that your own conscience could be clear.
Then, if I might polititely suggest this, go and hang yourself out of shame that you would kill people in the name of your \”ethics\”.
I entirely reject the contention that you have the right to turn other people into corpses in order to salve your own conscience.