[bbkingkrimson]

I donated bone marrow about 10 years ago. It was an exhausting process, though no worse than dealing with a bad cold. After about two years (if I remember correctly), we exchanged details through the organization that facilitates these donations. However, the recipient never reached out to me. Out of curiosity, I googled the person and discovered this person was apparently a neo-nazi (at least very very right leaning) from East Germany.

[belorn]

As someone who has been trained in CPR, looking into the patient world views before deciding to help is not good. Trying to weight if a human life is worth saving generally only leads to a very dark place that only game theory scientists and philosophers should do.

Thankfully in EU we have laws against this in terms of human rights. Doctors can not refuse to provide medical help to anyone regardless of patients world views. Far leaning left, far leaning right, women, men, color of skin and so on. If blood or organ donations would start to allow discrimination based on world views then such restrictions would be struck down in courts, based on the same principles that is behind the opposition to Neo-nazism.

[deadbabe]

Imagine donating to a neo-Nazi while a good person you could have donated to wither and dies. Fuck this, your body your choice. We should get to choose, and if we can’t, then I can see why someone would choose to not donate at all.

[belorn]

I fully understand that not everyone agree with the EU human rights that define world views as equally protected as religious beliefs, but the core concept is that every human being is worth the same as humans regardless of what that person believe in, be that a religious text, a shaman, a political view, or just random thoughts they gotten. The medical system especially do not decide which life is worth saving by looking at what the patient believes in which is something everyone benefits from.

Naturally people who do not accept that do not need to donate, but don't expect the medical system to change in order to get more donations. The chaos it would cause would cost more life than it would save, and it would send a very wrong signal to the rest of society.

[deadbabe]

Why the assumption that every human is worth the same as any other human? Some humans are truly human garbage. Is a mass murderer worth the same as a doctor?

[teddyh]

These questions were argued at length since time immemorial, and we have in modern times reached some sort of conclusion, most famously defined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United States Declaration of Independence.

If you want to reject those documents (and more), that is your choice. But if you want to argue against them, you will have to do better than that.

[qingcharles]

People are more than just their shitty viewpoints. The world is a chaos system. This person might go on to develop some incredible medical procedure, or write some new useful kernel code. They might have a child who is disgusted by their parent's worldview and starts a revolution of universal brotherhood.

Or the person might just be worthless. C'est la vie.

[illiac786]

That’s fine, then you do not donate.

What is then better, ethically speaking: donating at the risk of donating to a psychopath, or not donating at all?

But it still is and should remain your choice to donate or not.

[bbkingkrimson]

Definitely agree with you on this. It was a bit disappointing when I found out. As for bone marrow, I’ve got plenty to give, but in the 18 years I’ve been registered, I’ve only been contacted twice. One of those times, if I recall correctly, they said I wasn’t a good enough match.

[dtgriscom]

The ethics of organ distribution is complex, and I wouldn't want to be on the committee deciding who is worthy and who is not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_organ_transplantatio...

https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/professionals/by-topic/ethi...

[belorn]

The ethics of organ distribution usually do not look into the worthiness of the person needing the organ, but rather the effectiveness of the procedure. If the medical intervention is unlikely to be effective, the limited medical resources is better to be allocated elsewhere. Behavior and access to social support can be part of the assessment of how effective the procedure will be, but it doesn't weight the social worthiness of the patient.

This principle is similar to why palliative care is different from medical care. At some point the effectiveness of health care is so low that it mostly do more harm or drain resources better allocated to other patients. It is not that elderly people are not worthy of health care, and the ethical considerations focus on making sure its not a value based judgement about who should live and who shouldn't.

[lr4444lr]

I hope that your gift of life to him will one day make him realize life is too fleeting to be expend it on such a hateful ideology.

[dmurray]

I first read this as you being the recipient of the bone marrow, and thought "that makes sense, for a hardcore ethno-nationalist to save the life of someone with whom he has a high genetic compatibility".

Very good of you to do it anyway. I bet he doesn't resent that the tissue comes from someone who doesn't share his worldview.

[lifestyleguru]

If you seek contact simply fly from Berlin airports, the recipient will search and frisk you.