Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by CobrastanJorji 800 days ago
I imagine it's because we find it morally gross to harvest organs from the healthy poor.

I get that it leads to a lot of people dying who otherwise wouldn't die, and that's awful, but I think it's similar to prostitution. It makes sense to allow two consenting people who might agree to do something with each other for free to also do that same thing for money, but when you allow that, it tends to suddenly lead to a lot of people who are not actually very "willing." I think there are very real concerns that an "organic donation for money" industry quickly leads to a lot of trafficked people losing kidneys.

1 comments

> I imagine it's because we find it morally gross to harvest organs from the healthy poor.

That is correct. The objection is solely from having a high divinity quotient in one's moral foundations causing one to rationalize visceral reactions to an obviously sensible process.

After all, the argument you then propose applies to egg donation, sperm donation, surrogacy, logging, and life insurance. People who might do it for free, might be coerced instead. And yet we have flourishing industries there and life is better for it.

Egg donation, sperm donation, life insurance, and logging are pretty different, but surrogacy is a good comparison. And, like organ harvesting, a lot of people find surrogacy for money to be morally objectional, for example the Pope, and also the governments of most countries.
The Pope protects child abusers. His opinion usually means the opposite is better.