Stolen Organs or Your Life?

[brianeyci]

You know, everyone is talking about the organ "donor" being dead.

Yet there is a big news story about stolen kidneys where all the original owners are still alive.

So --- WOULD it make a difference to you to take a stolen organ knowing the donor was still alive vs. certainly dead?

I don't think so to most people. The person would likely be from India/Pakistan/wherever, and almost everybody here could rationalize it as the person in the third world shithole having less of a chance of contributing as someone in a first-world nation. Failing that, people could rationalize it as able to live with one kidney.

So for a real dilemma I think you have to set it up as the donor being dead, unless the other person wasn't from a shithole but was kidnapped in the US and could sue your fucking pants off, like Stas Bush saying he'd be willing to go to prison and live than die. That makes it a harder choice, if you lose almost everything and live, but realistically the person would be from a third world shithole. Guy waking up in a cold hotel bathtub with a kidney gone is an urban legend in the first world. Western doctors wouldn't violate their ethics with a kidney from an unknown source, so you'd be finding unscrupulous doctors. As far as I know if you walk into a hospital with a kidney on ice, doctors will refuse.

Unless the alive person can somehow demand his organ back or can get back at you, saying the donor's alive doesn't change much.

[Darth Wong]

How is this thread any different from "what would you do if you had a gun to your head" threads? People will do a lot when they have a gun to their heads.

[brianeyci]

It's not except for people with poor long-term planning skills.

People who don't understand delayed gratification see a big difference between dying right away and dying later. People who do plan and can wait don't see any difference at all, and it's fucking annoying to them.

Seems to be a "dilemma" designed for morons, no offense.

[Darth Servo]

I was thinking its more like "steal food to save someone" questions.

[Elfdart]

I would have no problem with using a stolen car to drive myself, a family member or hell, a total stranger to the emergency room if that's what it took. If the person who stole the car had killed the owner, I would still use the car since (a) I had nothing to do with the murder and (b) there's nothing that can be done for the victim but another innocent person can still be saved.

I'd like to think I would never kill a person in a carjacking, nor would I be complicit in such an act.

I think those principles apply in the case of organs: The means to save a life come from a criminal source, but they are the only means available to save that life and there's nothing that can be done for the murder victim. If that makes me an accessory after the fact, I'd just have to take my chances since prison is better than letting a family member die when you can save them.

[Junghalli]

So --- WOULD it make a difference to you to take a stolen organ knowing the donor was still alive vs. certainly dead?

It'd probably make me less reluctant to accept the transplant.

[Dillon]

Accept it and spend the rest of my life hating myself for it.

Guilt doesn't make an action more or less moral, so no point in making yourself feel worse to make yourself feel better. Face it- most people would take the organ, and they'd be right to do it.

As for turning the guy in afterward, lets not deceive ourselves. You get that kidney or what have you, and then you never see those people again, because they'll be gone. Saying you'd turn in the criminal (only after he benefited you) just to assuage your guilt over caring about staying alive is ridiculous.

I never implied that my guilt had any impact on how ethical my actions were. I wouldn't choose to feel guilty, but that's all part of having a conscience. You can't control what you feel.

[Justforfun000]

I'd accept it if the person was already dead. Absolutely.

Threatened to be stolen from someone? That's really hard for me....It's extremely difficult for me to say "yes" when, (for example), I argue so vociferously against circumcision being performed on an un-consenting person. I feel that an individuals body is the most important 'possession' one can possibly claim as completely and utterly, their property. The only reason I can see someone else's decision taking over that precedence, is to aid the person towards health when they are unable to make such a decision.

So it would violate one of my basic moral standards regarding human ethics. Does this mean I can answer "no" absolutely? No. I have to admit that I simply do not know if I'd be so scared that I'd do anything to save my life. It doesn't help that I have a very heightened fear of death and dwell on the unfairness and finality of it's expected coming far too often..

However, I think i can honestly say that if someone had to KILL the person to get it, I would say no. Why? Because I am not immortal anyway, so I AM going to face death and I could never live the rest of my life and not live in mortal fear over the ramifications of what I done. My conscience would always haunt me even IF no one else ever found out, and that small but likely insignificant hope that there is some form of afterlife would be completely jeopardized as to whatever worthiness I would have felt allowed me to have it granted.

[Redleader34]

I would take it, because at this point, the doner is either dead, or going to probably die from the lack of something major. I mean, with life, it would be almost suicide to not accept it, and I cannot commit suicide through inaction, in this case, if someone was to give me the chance to kick the reaper away for a while longer.

[Broomstick]

I would take it, because at this point, the doner is either dead, or going to probably die from the lack of something major.

Why do you think the donor is doomed? Most people who have sold or been pressured into donating kidneys are still very much alive. It does leave them slightly more vulnerable medically, and some have reported chronic problems, but it doesn't kill the donor. Likewise, you could remove a lobe of a liver, or a lung, from a person and they could recover afterward.

How would it make things different if the donor wasn't dead - just permanently less healthy and strong?

What if the donor was alive but left crippled? Is it still worth it if it gives you another 3-5 years of life but leaves another person suffering for decades?

How would it change if there is a real possibility of the donor finding out who you are and perhaps coming to meet you in person? Taking you to court? Demanding reparations?

[Twoyboy]

What if the donor was alive but left crippled? Is it still worth it if it gives you another 3-5 years of life but leaves another person suffering for decades?

That reminds me so much of The Simpsons when Homer decides to donate his kidney to his dad, and Grandpa Simpson says something like "You've significantly reduced your own life to give an old man a slight extension of his".

[Ford Prefect]

Politicians who adopt a bellicose international posture, who spout a lot of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric, who speak of Australia being founded on Christian values, and who try to censor the Internet.

The truth, unfortunately, hurts.

I really think this 'issue' and my reply to it depends on how it is presented. If I am slowly drifting off into eternal slumber and someone presents to me an organ which they tell me they stole, perhaps telling me some horrific story about how they bashed someone's head in with a rock in order to get it, I would accept it. I mean, let's break it down here: 1) I will die without it, and I like being alive; 2) the original owner isn't likely to get it back (or can't due to having a caved in skull); and 3) I can't possibly empathise with this person, because I've never met them. I'll take that, thank you.

Things change if I am taken to meet the person from whom the organ is to be stolen. In that instance, I would be able to empathise with that person, and thus taking their precious organs would prove to be far more difficult. Again, the state the person is in can change how I'd react, but my reaction would not nearly be as instaneous in this regard.

[Kojiro]

The only think that would make me hesitate, like many, would be the donors life. If someone came to me and said 'hey I'll steal that for you' I'd definitely say no (well I really hope so anyway). If the person is dead already I don't give a damn where it came from. I couldn't commission the theft but I would have no problem benefiting from it incidentally.

[Dargos]

I am actually not afraid of "death". I've seen it in many forms and faced it several times.
My affairs are in order, so if I suddenly drop dead at this moment my sons will be very well taken care of. That doesn't mean that I won't fight to live. I would use the organs if that was my final option.

What I'm afraid of is how I will die. Some deaths I've wittnessed have been slow and horrible, another one was quick but equally horrible. I hope to die one day peacefully with my sons and their children around me, but the odds are very long indeed for something like that to happen.

I actually think my life will begin to end due to some form of cancer, seeing as I've had skin cancer and other forms of cancer seem to run strong in my family. If it comes to that, I will pick a very quick form of death before it becomes too late for me to have a say in the matter.