Organ donors save lives, so why not pay them?

Increment by increment, people are beginning to realise the benefits of allowing individuals to accept payments for their organs. IPN has previously highlighted how thousands of people die waiting for organ transplants, while governments ban them from offering financial incentives to potential vendors.

A report today says that UK governing bodies are considering the ethical implications of allowing some form of added compensation or financial benefits to donors.

The report sensibly points out that people in the UK are currently able to accept payments for clinical trials, but not to donate a kidney to someone in need. Meanwhile, thousands of people across the world die due to a lack of kidneys available for transplant.

This issue always raises hysterical cries about “ethical” concerns, as scaremongers foresee queues of the destitute, Dickensian selling off their innards to chubby stockbrokers. Fortunately, however, this is not grounded in any kind of reality – and is not witnessed outside clinical trial centres. Furthermore, last month a report in the USA demonstrated that such a system would not result in a disproportionate number of poor people becoming vendors.

If there’s an ethical objection to be had here, it lies in a state sending people to their graves by denying them the right to offer a financial incentive to someone who could save them. The sooner we realise this, the better.