Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by eru 406 days ago
It would be useful to allow more organ trading in general, not just in blood or blood plasma.

Iran is one of the few countries that allow you to pay eg kidney donors. Guess who doesn't have a waitlist for donor kidneys?

2 comments

Yes, that's what the world needs more of: even more of a divide in long-term health outcomes based on wealth.
People with more connections can already get faster access to donor kidneys.

And a poor person with one kidney less but extra health checkups can probably get better health outcomes than a poor person with two kidneys but extra health checkups. (This assumes that the kidney sale comes with some mandatory regular health checkups. Just like kidney donations do.)

Sure, but that's not the reality.

In Iran, there is no tracking of donors and most donors don't want to be associated with the donation long-term, as it's connected to their poverty and the shame of their poverty. In the limited surveys that have been done many also noted that they haven't been properly informed about the risks of a donation.

It is controversial to put into system letting people sell their bodies to make ends meet.
Wage labour is selling your body for a time. Why not sell your body by part?
The time is gone anyway, and barring industrial accident you still have your entire body to sell again afterwards. That is not true of kidney donation — you can't donate a second time¹ and if your remaining one fails you are up shit creak because if you were in the position of being willing to sell one back then you are unlikely to be in the position to buy one now.

Donation of blood and other replenishables is a bit different of course, but allowing open sale opens some bad avenues in terms of people effectively being forced to (which could carry risks they wouldn't normally want to take).

----

[1] Well, not practically…

> The time is gone anyway, and barring industrial accident you still have your entire body to sell again afterwards.

Your two statements contradict each other.

In any case, we only have a finite number of days allotted to us on earth.

> [...] you can't donate a second time [...]

You can't repeat your 30s either.