Columns

Debatable is written by the Otago University Debating Society, which meets for social debating every Tuesday at 7pm in the Commerce Building. This week’s motion is “that individuals should be allowed to sell their organs”. Rebecca Gates argues the affirmative while John Brinsley-Pirie argues the negative.

 
Affirmative
There are over 400 people waiting for an organ transplant in NZ. Not all of these people will survive long enough to see the day when they can be given a life-saving operation, because donors are so rare. Firstly, donors have to die in such a way that their organs are actually donatable, then they have to be healthy enough for it to be possible, then you have to get the agreement of their relatives (no, that ‘donor’ on your license is not the end of it).
While a heart transplant requires a dead donor, you can live with only one kidney, and your liver (resilient organ that it is) will grow back if you cut out half to go to a deserving fellow human being. Instead of having people languishing on a waiting list and painkillers, desperately hoping for a donor-creating motorbike crash, we could have donees walking away with new parts, and donors walking away with a very healthy bank balance. On a principled level, it is my body, to do with what I choose. If I decide that having to re-grow my liver is worth having a large lump sum payment, then I should be able to sell part of my liver.
There are risks to donating, as with any surgery; if you sell a kidney, you will never play rugby again. That does not stop us from allowing relatives to act as live donors. The power of love does not magically minimise the risks or make the post-surgery healing faster. It’s allowed because the relative says that their parent’s, or sibling’s, or child’s life means more to them then their kidney. Allowing people to sell organs would mean that they could choose if sending their kids to a flash school or paying off their mortgage or getting a sweet new car is worth more to them than their kidney. As long as people are fully informed about the risks that come with the surgery, that should be their call to make.
Finally, organ selling would open up a new source of revenue for people who desperately need money. Some might start harping on about the pressure that this places on the vulnerable poor in society, forgetting that we let people do dangerous stuff all the time in return for money. Drug trials can result in every participant getting cancer, or having seizures. Once the person is fully informed of the risks, it should be their choice if they want to run them.
Allowing individuals to sell organs will save lives, wallets and is the principally sound thing to do.
Rebecca Gates
 
Negative
There are four hundred people waiting for an organ transplant in NZ. Some of them will sadly die. The organ donation system in NZ is far from perfect, families can trample over the wishes of the deceased and this slows down the turnover of organs that can save lives. However, this is no excuse for the state to prey upon those who are the most vulnerable and desperate in order to harvest their organs. Becky rightly stated that organ selling would open up a revenue stream for those who desperately need it. The problem with this is that this is the sole market for the supply; the people who need the money and who will take the risk to sell their ‘un-needed’ organs. Sadly people aren’t altruistic; the businessman and the office worker will never be the people selling their kidneys. Why? Because understandably they don’t want to take the risk or the drop in lifestyle quality.
 
Given that this is the market for organ selling, it is principally wrong for the state to prey upon these people. Becky put forward the overused libertarian philosophy that “it’s my body therefore I get to make the choice what I do with it!”; this is flawed on a fundamental level. When someone is desperate for money and there is a choice to sell your kidney, this is a false choice. Essentially your desperation and vulnerability, coupled with the incentive of the state giving you money for parts of your body, distort the autonomy that you have and compel you to make a choice. This is wrong. The state needs to exist to protect people. If these people are so desperate, instead of offering to buy their organs, the state should perhaps think of providing a more compassionate welfare system. It is abhorrent to think that because some people are dying, the state turns to the weakest and desperate in society in order to harvest their ‘un-needed’ body parts. This is why we currently have organ donation. We understand that allowing the selling of organs does not empower people to make their own choices, indeed it acts to the opposite.
 
Becky also wanted to make the analogy between organ-selling and clinical trials. Well the key difference here is degree of harm. In a clinical trial (especially in NZ), there is an enormous set of regulations around testing, and very few people get negative side effects, indeed many actually get medical benefits. In organ removal there is always harm. People’s livelihoods are affected. Furthermore the risk of transplanting an organ is much higher than getting a drug trial; death is a serious possibility. This risk is clear and we should not encourage people to undergo it for money. Perhaps we need to put in a more stringent set of regulations over organ donations but it is never time to turn to those who are vulnerable and compel them to give up their body.
John Brinsley-Pirie