There’s one country in the world without a waiting list for kidneys for transplant.

Iran.

There’s one country in the world where selling your kidney (in a strictly regulated, government run, market) is legal.

Iran.

This is not coincidence.

And it does rather amuse me that she’s using numbers that I started throwing around a couple of years ago. A year’s income etc.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article1878559.ece

Um, why was NUJ Scotland asked to comment? D’you mean NUS?

Isn’t the headline here rather like reporting a call for drug legalization under the headline “Students – ‘take a load of crack’”?

Thinking something should be legal isn’t the same as thinking it’s a good idea or telling people they should do it.

I’m sure that /some/ people will be horrified about the rise in prostitution among students as well. What do they expect?

” A prominent academic has suggested students should be allowed to sell their kidneys to cover education debts. ”

Why not turn it around and tell us why people should not be free to do with their own body whatever they choose? Any economist could tell you that the shortage of kidney donors is easily solvable through a market in kidneys. Then along would come people from a sociology, philosophy, politics and theological perspective to bore us to tears why it is not acceptable. The result is kidney shortages and people needlessly prematurely dying. Hey, that apparently is moral. Others see it as screwed-up ideology trumping reason.

Why is it OK for people to sell their hair for wigs, and immoral to sell a kidney? Is it just because hair is replaceable? What if they had two kidneys? Why is it OK for people to be paid for sperm donations, but not a kidney? Is every sperm not unique, albeit men have lots of them. So does the objection come own to basic arithmetic and the supposed morality is fake? People with less money would be more likely to sell a kidney than those who valued their kidney more than the additional money i.e. poor people. Poor people have always done things that people with more money did not do. Like work. Why not leave it up to them what they should do? We abolish poor people and we would still have kidney shortages. The present situation clearly does not work when we suffer from shortages.

Some people favour a system that assumes consent unless the person has specifically opted out and that is more immoral than a live person opting in for payment. Dead people can’t give consent and a presumption of consent has no validity.

*Why not leave it up to them to decide what they should do?*

Why not turn it around and tell us why people should not be free to do with their own body whatever they choose?

I do not know if you are aware but “altruistic” living donation of kidneys has been possible for a number of years.The introduction of a market place for kidneys is a repulsive idea.My wife who is currently on the transplant list for a kidney has asked me to express her opposition to the idea.

@7. hindle-a

” I do not know if you are aware but “altruistic” living donation of kidneys has been possible for a number of years. ”

Has that led to a surplus or a deficit in kidneys?

” The introduction of a market place for kidneys is a repulsive idea. ”

No reasoned objection why? Some people find needless premature death repulsive?

@RitchardW – Let’s take one step at a time, shall we?

Let’s start with a person’s will on donation being overriding. If you’re not familiar with what typically happens, you might be saying “what” at this point.

Okay, someone have an accident, which leaves them brain-dead. They have a donor card, with clear wishes outlined. And their family object. Annnd…no organs will be taken.

Well, let’s turn that around. Take the organs, since the person’s wishes should be overriding. THEN let’s see how many more are needed. In my case, I don’t bother carrying an organ donor card, since I *know* my family would simply override it, for starters…

Just another logical step in the commodification of life, and even the human body. We are things to be bought and sold, and we should look on our physical form in the same way – why stop at a kidney? How about an eye? or even a lung, or – in extremis – a hand or an arm? Yeah, marketise the lot – there couldn’t possibly be any negative consequences of that, could there?

“why stop at a kidney? How about an eye? or even a lung, ”

Because both kidneys and lungs (in more detail, one kidney and one half of one lung) can be taken from a live donor with no (sorry, very little) higher risk to hte donor.

Which is why we allow, even encourage, live donations of kidneys and lungs. And do not of hands, hearts or eyes.

“Yeah, marketise the lot”

What the fuck is wrong with markets? If you can solve people dying because people voluntarily step up to save their lives, what in fuck have you got against markets?

this is not the way to convince people to donate kidneys for transplant, it should not be driven by a profit motive.

“The introduction of a market place for kidneys is a repulsive idea.”

Why?

Hmm… looks like some people like looking to Iran for a lot of things now.

Beating the crap out of protesters, Guido wanting the death penalty and now the selling of kidneys. Oh, and Ahmadinejad is now in the process of privatising everything in sight.

I wonder whether the same people will be using these as excuses to call Iranians sub human barbarians when the time comes around for a military attack…

“this is not the way to convince people to donate kidneys for transplant, it should not be driven by a profit motive.”

We know that this does convince people: see Iran.

We know that the other methods that everyone’s tried do not: see every other country.

So, people should die waiting for a kidney because you hate profits?

Time to wheel out again that traditional urban legend about a stolen kidney?
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/horrors/a/kidney_thieves.htm

Oh, and going to something more relevant, I would not have much confidence in her at all as a professor.

I think that selling kidneys to alleviate poverty is a very dangerous road to go down. I can see the benefits that Tim has mentioned, but it just seems to me as cutting further and further to the bone when you have nothing (almost literally) in terms of selling your own body. And what if we start going down a road where these things can be used as collateral against things such as loans?

A market in kidneys, why is it wrong? Because of externalities, which, of course exists in other areas of the market, why add more.
Eg. student sells kidney to pay for their degree and then develops health problems due to having only one kidney, or it fails. The rest of us have to pay for their health-care which might involve replacing the one kidney. Result, student gets free degree and the rest of us pay for a new kidney if they cannot afford to buy one.

I’m shocked, *shocked*, to see otherwise orthodox liberals suggesting that the state should have a role in setting prices and otherwise regulating a market. Surely a market in human body parts should be allowed to develop naturally so that prices are kept low and speculators can flourish. £28,000 for an organ you don’t even need? Ridiculous, you can get it for £2000 in Iran.

Whatever the rights and wrongs in the debate about selling one’s organs, the learned prof was utterly crass in her suggestion.

By accounts, they don’t have these capitalist problems in PRC. Try this news report on the harvesting of body parts there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbZLtR9HZeI

So what we have is the slippery slope fallacy, and argumentum ad consequentiam. What we do know for sure is the probability of some people dying if they do not receive a kidney transplant is high. Moreover, the worst-case scenario of someone with only one kidney requiring a later transplant is low. Why then is the latter an externality and not the former ? I don’t think you can get a more severe externality than dying. Moreover, as far as I am aware no one is suggesting that buying a kidney should only apply to those who can afford to buy.

“Moreover, as far as I am aware no one is suggesting that buying a kidney should only apply to those who can afford to buy.”

Indeed, in the Iranian model, the State pays. In the model I have advocated, the State pays.

Why should the State pay? Actually, because a transplant, with the State paying around one year’s average income to the donor, is cheaper than putting the person on dialysis. It saves the NHS money.

BTW, it would probably be the poor who would benefit as well: lower socio-economic status is a risk factor for kidney disease after all.

@23 – Except, again, why not provide many of the organs by respecting the wishes of a dead person ahead of their family?

“Except, again, why not provide many of the organs by respecting the wishes of a dead person ahead of their family?”

Excellent question.

So, please go and find a country which does this and has no queue for transplant kidneys.

While you try to find what doesn’t exist I’ll carry on pushing the system that does solve the queue for kidneys.

BTW, if such a system does solve the queue then great, lovely, we don’t need to bring the market into it at all. But as far as I’m aware (and entirely willing to be corrected) there’s only one place people don’t die on dialysis waiting for a kidney. The only place where there is a regulated and legal market.

And yes, it does piss me off mightily that, as with a couple here, people are just over-joyed to put their distaste for markets ahead of other people’s lives. I’d use stronger language than just that if I weren’t in someone else’s place.

22
The answer is organ donation. As with most body parts/fluids, within the NHS they are donated and the operation and technical support is paid for by the taxation of society. Who exactly do you think is going to pay for the operation to remove the student’s kidney? Who is going to pay when ill-health befalls the student. Your ‘slippery slope’ equals a financial burden to the tax-payer.

25
Perhaps you can enlighten us all and indicate why a market for kidneys did not emerge before the NHS?

@25 – Except it’s a way of considerably lowering the queue for large numbers of organs, not just kidneys, and without the inevitable health sacrifices involved in live donations.

@27 – Er, the first successful kidney transplant was in ’54, the NHS in ’48.

“Indeed, in the Iranian model, the State pays. In the model I have advocated, the State pays.”

Well…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/6080328.stm

“The only problem is that if you do not have the money for a new kidney then there is no list to get on.

There is an official price list, where the state pays donors $1,000 (£531) while the recipient and their family pay $2000 (£1,062).

But once donor and recipient are introduced the haggling starts. [Somewhat like the market for army commissions in the 19th century, where there were gentlemen's agreements, kinda sorta illegal but happened all the time]”

PS, the line breaks mean the transcript found on that page – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/programmes/this_world/transcripts/kidneysforsale_311006.txt – has a strange, poetic quality…

“Now don’t be upset.
We wouldn’t harm your son,
to help a patient.
We would not afflict him
to help someone
who is dependent on dialysis.
Donating a kidney is harmless.
We even have a wrestler
who donated his kidney,
and he’s still wrestling!
So please don’t cry. ”

“Slippers, towels, shaver, knife, fork,
spoon, cup and chewing gum…
This is the guy who wants
to give a kidney to this lady.”

“We have to be very careful
with the money.
My kidney was our last asset.
There’s nothing else to sell.
We must be very careful.”

@27: “Perhaps you can enlighten us all and indicate why a market for kidneys did not emerge before the NHS?”

In the long history of medicine, the option of organ transplants is relatively new.

“On December 3, 1967, South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard conducted the first heart transplant on 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky. The surgery was a success. However, the medications that were given to Washkansky to prevent his immune system from attacking the new heart also supressed his body’s ability to fight off other illnesses. Eighteen days after the operation, Washkansky died of double pneumonia.”
http://history1900s.about.com/b/2003/12/03/first-heart-transplant.htm

The NHS dates back to 1948.

28
‘Er, the first successful kidney transplant was in ’54, the NHS in ’48′ – and your point is?

30
‘The NHS dates back to 1948′ – and your point is?

26. jojo

“The answer is organ donation.”

You do know that means needless deaths through shortages?

” As with most body parts/fluids, within the NHS they are donated and the operation and technical support is paid for by the taxation of society. Who exactly do you think is going to pay for the operation to remove the student’s kidney? ”

Who currently pays for harvesting organs for transplant?

” Who is going to pay when ill-health befalls the student. ”

I think you mentioned something about general taxation.

“Your ‘slippery slope’ equals a financial burden to the tax-payer. ”

Do you think it is the tooth fairy who pays for dialysis ?

32
I could have mentioned much more cost to the taxpayer such as research, medical training, purchasing of pharmaceuticals, equipment etc. But please feel free to add to that list anthing you notice that I’ve missed.
And do you really believe that if there is a market in kidneys then dyalisis will no longer be needed in NHS hospitals?

Will our new improved benefit system take account of a broader range
of valuable personal assets like a spare kidney in determining eligibility?

Just think of the £££ savings to the public purse, both from
the value of organs, the disincentive to claim and reduced life expectancy.

Osborne could easily abolish the 50p rate of tax and give Bob Diamond could get his £660,000 tax cut to save our economy

@ 33. jojo

While you are calculating the cost. Maybe you would like to assign a monetary figure for each of the lives which are currently lost in your system of altruistic donation.

@31 – Oh right, you’re just trolling. Anyway…

@35 – Yea, can’t have oh…ethics involved, or ways which won’t make huge profits for private companies doing the surgery eh?

Consider – this will actually in most cases, with students, be a net financial loss to the state. Since they’d pay their loan off immediately, rather than paying more than the financial cost of the loan over the course of the decades.

*watches for the reaction*

“@25 – Except it’s a way of considerably lowering the queue for large numbers of organs, not just kidneys, and without the inevitable health sacrifices involved in live donations.”

Sure. Hey, give us whatever system you want: they still don’t solve the problem. Not presumed consent, not donor cards over-riding the family’s wishes.

There just aren’t enough people who die with harvestable kidneys for the number of people who will die without a new kidney.

There just ain’t. We need youngish reasonably healthy people who don’t die of cancer. Of the right tissue type. Who die.

There just aren’t enough of those people to stop people with rotting kidneys from dying. Doesn’t matter what system you bring in, there aren’t enough corpse sourced organs to do it.

Now, in the long term, that pursuit of profit is going to solve it. Growing kidneys (and other organs, like that trachea op just last week) on a structure using the patient’s own DNA, so no rejection.

Which leaves us with the people who are going to die between now and then because you think “profits” are icky. You know, markets, paying people, they’re bad, M’Kay?

One of the other threads on this very blog is about how a nurse shouldn’t be able to use belief in the sky fairy to insist on not wearing trousers.

At least she wasn’t insisting that her moral prejudices kill people, was she?

@ Leon

I don’t see why private companies would be doing the surgery. Why would it be any different to the current system of the NHS harvesting organs?

I find it intriguing that lefties are presenting arguments based on cost. They would normally be outraged if someone was to suggest that people in need of a transplant should be allowed to die because of the cost of treatment.

“Now, in the long term, that pursuit of profit is going to solve it.”

Prove it. The development work for tissue growth in kidneys is going on in University labs, and the currently leading team in the this would actually hand it to a non-profit when fully developed.

And yes, one of the other threads is about how intolerant people think it’s acceptable to lie to their employees, rather than accepting reasonable solutions. There’s a name for that…

35
I can no more put a cost of lives lost using the ‘altruistic’ method than you can estimate the number of lives saved if we had a market.
What I can add is that our altruistic method of blood donation has saved many lives, including those who have had kidney transplants and who also required a blood transfusion.
36
So you don’t have a point.

@38 – Please do pay attention the NHS reforms then.

And I’m slamming a right-winger for his cost argument by pointing out it’s flawed. I do believe that ethics is the overriding issue here, and I’ve presented a way to get a significant number – not all, but still, of the organs via making personal choice more important.

@40 – Incoherence gets you nowhere.

@ 41. Leon Wolfson

Your deeply held ethical objections are based on prospective NHS reforms?

The so-called ethical objections make no sense. I can understand someone objecting in principle to using one persons body parts as a transplant to another person. However, we already do transplants with only small minorities of people objecting to them. The answer to them is just don’t get a transplant if you have moral, ethical or religious objections. Just leave everyone else alone to do what they want. So, religious objections are in some degree rational. Objections based on exchanging pieces of paper bearing the Queens head are just bizarre.

The same principle should apply, if you have ethical objections to paid for organ donations. Just do not take part in paid organ donations. Demanding that the law should reflect ones personal prejudices is, I don’t know, intolerant.

“What I can add is that our altruistic method of blood donation has saved many lives, including those who have had kidney transplants and who also required a blood transfusion.”

Indeed, it has. Just as our altruistic and entirely non-state method of running the lifeboats has saved many lives.

And that blood donation is one of the really interesting examples of when markets work extraordinarily well.

For, in the US, there used to be two systems of collecting blood. Paid collection and donated, exactly, the latter, the same as our own UK system.

Then HIV came along, with Hep C as well. And new regulations: you must say whether the blood you have collected was paid for or donated. Guess what happened?

The paid for blood, no one wanted it. Junkies turning up to make $10. No, we’d rather have that stuff from those middle class peeps in the suburbs that give it away.

So, having a market, with information, got rid of the bad shit from the system. Ain’t that interesting as an example for the reforms of the NHS? Competition leads to rising standards even?

Now, as to organ donation. That’s the system we’ve got now. Donation. And people die because there’s not enough.

So, want to pay people or not? Does your moral objection to people being paid trump the desire of others to stay alive?

Your calle.

41
Perhaps you can explain why it is incoherent to ask you to explain what your point is with regard to a specific statement that you’ve made. As you don’t appear to have answered me, other than call me a troll, it’s reasonable to assume that you have no point to make.

43
Over the years there have been many problems with existing techniques, as time goes by, research and new knowledge leads to improvement, yes HIV positive blood donation caused deaths within an altruistic system, however, as HIV was not known until the problems emerged, it would be just the same within a market system.
Yes, the lifeboats rely totally on donations but you cannot know whether they would be more or less efficient if they were state sponsored and controlled.
Actually, I didn’t say anything about competition, but there has always been competition between academic researchers who rely on state funding.
You mention moral objection but I have been very careful not to involve morals and ethics.

Tim W I often don’t agree with you, but you’re rocking tonight. Tough stuff. Still don’t fully agree with you, but I’m thinking about it.

Thanks for the effort.

@41 – You asked him for something which was nonsensical, given the dates. You then insulted me. Thanks for being nasty, though.

@42 – Er, no? I just expect a *lot* of future “NHS” operations to be done by private companies. It’s a side-jab, sheesh.

*I’m* the one arguing that person preferences should override family ones when it comes to organ donations.

@43 – Funny, the WHO (who know a little more about it) are working hard to abolish payment for blood, primarily to ensure safety because they are less likely to lie about their health status.

Your monomania is, as usual, betraying you.

I’m willing to bet that Sue Rabbitt Roff (what a name!) is a right libertarian. This is the sort of thing that only they could dream up.

An ex-human-rights worker and an accredited non-governmental representative to the United Nations with more than 70 published papers. What does she know compared to reactionary conservatism.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Profile-Sue-Rabbit-Roff.6811976.jp

It gives poor people another asset they can be forced to sell to cover debts. How long until the money shop are having an organ buying joint venture with Care UK?

I can see why some people are heavily in favour of it. You can turn round and say people aren’t really poor, they’ve chosen to be, they could have sold their organs!

So which is better, compulsory organ donation (with opt out) or a market?

@52 – Or simply, again, applying dead people’s wishes over that of the their family, which will drastically increase the supply without opening it up to market forces or paternalism (which is also likely to yield to relatives objections, thus not dramatically increasing the supply, and still making a lot of people very unhappy).

I gotta say, while its a nasty idea that poor people would basically be selling parts of themselves for the mistakes of others, the good in this sort of activity far outweighs the downside.

I mean if a low income seller were paid an around 30,000 for their kidney well, that could be used for all sorts of real good for their lives. I mean that money could go to a down payment for a house, or buy all sorts of durable for a home, it could pay for night lessons, child care and yes University tuition fees.

Once again yes, its a sick idea to think that the only way for a poor person to break out of the poverty trap would be to sell their kidney. But seeing as the good that comes out of this, isn’t it more an indication of the sickness that pervades our society, the fact that this could do so much good for so many really shows the disgusting nature of inequality within our country.

Still, if society isn’t about to change in full anytime soon i don’t see why we don’t make it easier for the worst off in our society.. or anyone who could do with the money, plus its no real downside as we have universal healthcare and if their other kidney failed then they would have short waiting lists because we have so many spare kidneys.

One thing though, what the mortality rate in organ transplants for the donors? I think that is what makes or breaks this argument.

@53 – It’s tricky.

Actual major side-effects or deaths from the operation itself? Around 4/1000.

Lifespan? Well, yea – see, right now there are some fairly stringent criteria on things like fitness and general health for live donation, and given these, there’s no solid evidence of a significant decrease in lifespan over 15-20 years (longer-term evidence suggests a no-to-minimal effect too, but isn’t yet really conclusive).

However, relaxing those criteria, for for-pay kidney donation? Well…

“Actual major side-effects or deaths from the operation itself? Around 4/1000.”

That looks a bit high. It’s commonly quoted as about the same as a surrogate pregnancy and the researcher herself compares it to a C-section.

That’s for kidneys of course. For livers, lungs, don’t know, sorry, just don’t know the numbers. For hearts, death rate is 100% of course which is why we don’t do live donations of those…..although, actually, I think one has been done. Omne person was getting cadaver heart and lungs and the heart went on to a second, or is that me misremembering something?

Students?! Selling their kidneys!? Does she not know how much those fuckers drink?!
Methinks she needs to get out of her ivory tower a bit more often.

blood money doesn’t pay new evidence concerning monetary incentives for blood donation

@ 31 JoJo

Remarkably it seems your question was serious. Others obviously can’t be bothered, but let me spell it out for you.

In your post 27 you asked why a market for kidneys did not emerge before the NHS. As has been pointed out the ability to carry out kidney transplants did not exist until 1954.

If a kidney cannot be transplanted then there is not going to be any demand – hence no market.

The NHS was founded in 1948. Therefore prior to the formation of the NHS there would be no market.

Do you understand?

@5 RW: “Some people favour a system that assumes consent unless the person has specifically opted out and that is more immoral than a live person opting in for payment. Dead people can’t give consent and a presumption of consent has no validity.”

What harm does it do to the dead?

Although Prof Roff put her argument in mind-numbingly crass terms, there is actually a worthwhile case to be made – but the slippery-slope possibility is real and needs to be addressed. The moment any such system was introduced, there would be pressure to scrap price regulation, reduce or remove state involvement, and, as @50 points out, to force debtors to sell their organs. These are real dangers, which is why I’m uneasy about this idea.

Also, as has been pointed out, there are less drastic solutions to the organ shortage that we haven’t tried yet. Shouldn’t we start there? First, stop families from overriding the deceased’s wish to donate – if that fails, then we can return to this debate. Right now, it’s premature.

@55 – I suspect you’re looking at data only at *death* rates. There’s also some “major side-effects”, which push it up to 4/1000.

My worry there is any major relaxing of standards.

58
Thank you for answering, however, the first kidney transplant was carried-out by the NHS in 1960, some ten years after the first transplant in the US It isn’t that the others couldn’t be bothered to answer eg Tim W and Richard W, because they knew what I was getting at, do you really think that they would have ignored it?
The problem with early transplants was rejection, and it wasn’t until the development of immunoosuppressive drugs, initially acquired at great cost to the NHS, that kidney transplants became the norm.
My original argument, with regard to the market in kidneys, was about the cost of externalities, of which the developent and cost to the tax-payer was great. As with all insurance schemes, it is expected that if you pay your premium (In the case of the NHS, National Insurance) you have the same opportunity of accessing treatment (kidneys) as the next person (that’s how it would work in a market).
So why, after financing the research, development, training and a host of other costs such as buildings and pharmaceuticals, should those who cannot afford to pay see kidneys being sold to the highest bidder?
The only rational way is for the buyer/seller to pay for all of those costs.

By rational, you mean “after the NHS has been closed”, right.

@ 61. jojo

Nobody other than you is saying that kidneys should only go to those who can afford to buy them. The NHS just like now would transplant the kidneys to anyone who needed them. The problem is they do not have enough kidneys to meet the need and over 1000 people per year needlessly die.

” So why, after financing the research, development, training and a host of other costs such as buildings and pharmaceuticals, should those who cannot afford to pay see kidneys being sold to the highest bidder?
The only rational way is for the buyer/seller to pay for all of those costs. ”

Eh? Do you think a farmer should pay a bakery for the cost of their research, development and training in baking bread when the farmer is supplying them with wheat, or do you think the bakery should pay the farmer for the wheat?

None of the costs that the NHS has incurred developing transplants have created a kidney. The NHS developments created procedures and treatments, evolution created the kidney totally independent of the NHS.

Maybe you would like to have a stab at articulating why you believe that you have the right to tell others what to do with their own body?

63
Isn’t the point that NHS facilities would be used to enable the transaction of the seller and buyer.
And as for your example of the farmer and bakery, of course the bakery will charge for its’ research, either by giving the farmer less for their products or charging their consumer more. Either way, the seller/buyer will have to pay. So why, in the case of the kidney market, must the rest of us pay. Surely paying for the facility of harvesting the kidney and the surrounding costs should be charged.
Best still, the market should be separate to the NHS, much like private schools and hospitals. The tax contributions that the seller/buyer have made to the NHS will offset the costs of research, development etc.

“Best still, the market should be separate to the NHS, much like private schools and hospitals. The tax contributions that the seller/buyer have made to the NHS will offset the costs of research, development etc.”

Err, no, the aim is that it is the NHS (or some such similar governmental body) which actually runs the market.

It is the government which pays kidney donors. The transplants take place in NHS hospitals, just as now.

So, why should this be done?

Because, given the current shortage of kidneys, people die waiting for them. While they die on dialysis, they cost the NHS a lot of money. It’s actually cheaper (as long as the implantee survives more than 2 years) for someone to have a transplant than it does to keep them on dialysis.

So, our aim is to a) reduce the cost to the NHS and b) stop people dying by offering money to people who offer up one of their kidneys for transplant.

No one, absolutely no one at all, is suggesting a free for all market in kidneys. Only a better system than the one we have now.

65
From what source did you get ‘the aim’ from, or is it your idea of what it should be?

“From what source did you get ‘the aim’ from, or is it your idea of what it should be?”

The source? Me.

Which, given that I’m the person who first started shouting about this as a solution, seems like a decent enough source.

And yes, I’m afraid that I am actually the ultimate source. I suggested this recently over at the ASI (and wrote it up for The Times much earlier). That led to the Sunday Herald running the idea as a major story. You’ll note that this academic is at a Scottish uni? the Sunday Herald being a Scottish newspaper? She’s even used the same figure I did, annual average income of about £28,000 as payment.

That’s the reason I can give you the aim of the idea: because I’m the source of the idea.

Once the door to paying live donors is opened, then the door to paying dead donors will have people knocking on it. Why donate free if money is available to help pay funeral expenses, death duties, beneficiaries of the will, etc.? A slippery slope.

67
Silly me, I should have guessed that making a profit, on the backs of taxpayers, was one of your ideas, considering your vociferous defence of tax-credits.
Step-up, all you purveyors of kidneys, the NHS will facilitate a good profit for you.

No one here speaks the simple evidence. Imagination was a british virtue.

Let’ suppose a student sells his kidney for 28.000 GBP
studies ended, the student finds himself with no money or little and no kidney
with the ferocious ability of Life Reestablishing its Laws,
the student might not find a job, despite his diploma
so he is jobless.
then his health begins to sink (stress, money….) he will not find a job in that condition for sure.
he will be in the street or living with his parents or in the flat he purchased
till no more cash;

If he is lucky, and has a family with one kidney
he might have children with some kidney deficiency or some other organ
the student, father or mother will not be able to donate his compatible kidney
to his child…or his liver (too much stress for one kidney)

so is the partner going to sell the other kidney?
or the house they bought with the kidney’s money?

when crisis will be forcing people to accept any job at whatever price
organs will be sold for peanuts
the infamous NEW MERCHANTS OF ABOMINATION
the doctors and researchers, like the past War Mongers
will be the Life Mongers
They will save this patient if rich and sacrifice this one if poor
and in the end,
we will reach the last phase of human decay
a cannibalistic society where the rich eat the poor as a metaphore
first,
with the consent of the immature, imbecile (illness) desperate help of the “poor”
as if poor
If we add the food resources limited in the island (not enough food for all)
in future should any disaster cycle happen in Uk (it will),

Charlton heston will laugh in heaven watching the Planet of the apes watching Soylent Green on tv.

I read that the Queen of England had dreamed she saw a Deer (royal animal) dead or shot (dont remember) in her domain.
i give the meaning : it is the Death of Christian British Civilization. Good Luck

Well this discussion reminds me of this David Firth cartoon.

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