Should an altruistic organ donor be allowed to restrict their donation to a specific group of people? (e.g. women, gingers)
An extreme version of this is: What should the German health service do if someone says they are willing to donate a kidney as long as it doesn't go to a Jew?
On the one hand, nobody is forced to donate a kidney and by forbidding this we're making things worse for an innocent patient. On the other hand, it can be seen as the state sanctioning this kind of discrimination.
In Germany what you describe won’t be possible: organ donation from a living donor is only allowed if both person are quite close to each other (partners, family and so on). Organ donation from dead people is anonymous: the doctors that take the organs out of the dead person doesn’t know who receives them. Only Eurotransplant knows.
I think that’s a very good system. Organs should be given and received as anonymous as possible.
If you’re alive then you’re totally be within your rights to choose who to voluntarily help or donate something to. Don’t like the look of that homeless guy for whatever reason? Don’t give them money. You can be as racist or misogynistic or otherwise generally cunty as you like, and as long as it’s your personal money/time/organs and you keep quiet about your selection criteria you’re unlikely to have a problem.
However once you’re dead, if you want your dickish restrictions honoured then you have to write them down somewhere. And any organisation set up to manage organ donations that agrees to facilitate such restrictions is likely to find themselves on the pointy end of a discrimination lawsuit at some point.
What conditions are you imagining in which a donor is living but not aware of specifically who would be receiving the organ before agreeing? Tests need to be done to ensure compatibility, and a kidney is a lot to ask and probably wouldn't be agreed to unless it helps a loved one.
I feel like this is a strange premise whose goal is trying to try to move the line little by little until people are willing to say they're a little bit racist/sexist. Or until people are willing to admit they don't think others should have control over decisions made about their bodies. Be honest about your ends here instead of dreaming up fictions that make so little sense the answers are unproductive.
In practical terms it's very normal for people to only donate a kidney because they have a specific recipient in mind.
Trying to say no, "you can not donate your kidney only to your son, you have to make the kidney available to everyone" does not make sense.
If you are running an anonymous donation facility then practicality comes into play. How realistic is it to keep tabs on all kinds of weird preferences? Matches are already hard enough. And how do you disclose responsibly?
From an ethical point of view you need to look at the big picture. It is not enough to say that this is a kidney that someone will get but would not if you don't allow discrimination. You have to also think about whether such a policy will encourage people specifying who otherwise wouldn't. And then a growing imbalance in recipients.
Excellent question. I have to put myself in their shoes. I don't want my kidneys going to.. a member of the North Korean dictatorship, or the CCP. Or any of the elite in Dubai. I don't see anything wrong with my preferences there, so we would have to allow people to discriminate indiscriminately. I guess I would have to be in favour. There are people that I think are more deserving than others. Jeffery Dahmer isn't getting my organs.
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”
I do not understand the concept of "deserving to live." I did nothing to deserve life; it was given to me before I could do anything. Some people think that people can forfeit their "right to life" by their actions, but how can someone forfeit a right they never acquired?
I understand killing for practical reasons, in some cases, but claiming that everyone is born with a right to life that can be taken away is incoherent,
No. Organ "donation" after death should be compulsory. For living donors there should be a publicly funded bounty system where you either take the money or not. Donors and recipients don't get to be picky.
Hmmm okay, but it has to be difficult to opt-out, kind of like how conscientious objectors have to go through a whole process to get out of military service.