Imposing options on people in poverty: the harm of a live donor organ market

Rippon, Simon

doi:10.1136/medethics-2011-100318

Cited by 69 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…There may well be other such consequences that matter to the legitimacy of payment, e.g. social and legal pressures on providers that the normalization of payment may create (Andrews 1986, Rippon 2014. But these effects are likely to vary between institutional and cultural contexts at least as much as between body parts, making them difficult to consider on the level of abstraction where my argument proceeds.…”

Section: Demandmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does the ethical appropriateness of paying donors depend on what body parts they donate?

Malmqvist

2016

Med Health Care and Philos

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Abstract:The idea of paying donors in order to make more human bodily material available for therapy, assisted reproduction, and biomedical research is notoriously controversial. However, while national and international donation policies largely oppose financial incentives they do not treat all parts of the body equally: incentives are allowed in connection to the provision of some parts but not others. Taking off from this observation, I discuss whether body parts differ as regards the ethical legitimacy of incentives and, if so, why. I distinguish two approaches to this issue. On a "principled" approach, some but not all body parts are inherently special in a way that proscribes payment. On a "pragmatic" approach, the appropriateness of payment in relation to a specific part must be determined through an overall assessment of e.g. the implications of payment for the health and welfare of providers, recipients, and third parties, and the quality of providers' consent. I argue that the first approach raises deep and potentially divisive questions about the good life, whereas the second approach invokes currently unsupported empirical assumptions and requires difficult balancing between different values and the interests of different people. This does not mean that any attempt to distinguish between body parts in regard to the appropriateness of payment necessarily fails. However, I conclude, any plausible such attempt should either articulate and defend a specific view of the good life, or gather relevant empirical evidence and apply defensible principles for weighing goods and interests.

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Section: Demandmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does the ethical appropriateness of paying donors depend on what body parts they donate?

Malmqvist

2016

Med Health Care and Philos

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“…60 By analogy, an individual could feel pressurized by the knowledge that dual-donation is an option that others have chosen to pursue. Those who opt not to donate might then experience guilt, particularly if they are proximate to the potential recipient and they witness that individual's poor health; indeed, the unexercized option might foster conflict between potential donor and potential recipient.…”

Section: Protecting the Collective Goods?mentioning

confidence: 99%

When Opportunity Knocks Twice: Dual Living Kidney Donation, Autonomy and the Public Interest

Bailey¹,

Huxtable²

2015

Bioethics

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Section: Rippon's Challenge: How the Option To Vend Harmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Permitting sales, he claims, would ‘fundamentally change the norms of the relationships of each of us to our bodily organs and to each other’ 1. He worries that ‘if organs can be easily exchanged for cash they will then become commodified , and naturally subject to the kinds of social and legal demands and responsibilities that govern our other transactions in the marketplace’ 1. The unfortunate and predictable consequence is that many, especially those in poverty, will ‘find themselves faced with social or legal pressure to pay the bills by selling their organs’ 1…”

Section: Rippon's Challenge: How the Option To Vend Harmsmentioning

confidence: 99%