Mon 12 Jan, 2009
Hearts for Sale!
Comments (4) Filed under: Culture of Life, Human Dignity, Medical Ethics, Society, Transcendent Goods, Truth, WorldviewsThere can be no doubt that the worldview dominated by the medical profession today is utilitarianism. Utilitarians judge things according to how quickly and easily they meet current and present needs. Utilitarianism does not seek meaning in human action and events, and it spurns ideals and principles. One of the major problems with utilitarianism as a worldview is that it treats human beings as things to be used, as commodities, as resources, or as tools. It also tends to treat the body as a machine.
Utilitarianism shows itself again in an editorial that appeared in our local newspaper. The syndicated editorial can also be read here: Bring on the Organ Market, Mr. Obama. Bill Steigerwald argues that the legalization of the human organ market would save lives, and all other considerations pale in comparison to the importance of saving lives.
With just the power of his oratory and his yet-untarnished moral authority, our new changer-in-chief could save 7,000 American lives a year, put an end to the physical and mental suffering of another 100,000 men, women and children and save billions of dollars in unnecessary medical costs.
All he has to do on Jan. 20 is call for the repeal of the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984. That’s the terrible federal law that criminalizes the buying and selling of human organs for transplant operations — and therefore makes it a virtual certainty that the supply of kidneys, livers and hearts will never meet our demand for them.
Citing an article in The Economist, Steigerwald dismisses concerns forwarded by opponents of human organ sales by calling them “irrational, exaggerated or bogus.”
Outlawing organs does what outlawing drugs, booze or any other highly demanded product does: it creates a dangerous black market with no regulatory or judicial oversight.
The line that caught my attention was:
Meanwhile, the “moral” arguments of the ivory-towered medical ethicists, who think treating human body parts like a commercial commodity is an indignity that trumps saving lives, are indefensible.
Here is the quintessential utilitarian argument. Saving lives is a tangible and obvious benefit. Protecting human dignity is an ambiguous, unobservable value. Therefore saving lives trumps human dignity.
There is no doubt that saving lives is a good thing to do. Pope John Paul II has called human organ donation a morally heroic act of service. However, buying and selling human organs presents a number of evils
- First and foremost, buying and selling human organs treats the human body as a commodity. The human body is part of the human person, and human persons should never be bought and sold.
- Buying and selling human organs turns an act of heroic love into an act of self-interest, destroying the virtuous value of the act of self-donation
- Buying and selling human organs strengthens the utilitarian philosophy in the medical community, which already sees itself in the business of providing products and services in exchange for money rather than serving the needs of the sick and vulnerable.
- To call the concerns that the rich would benefit at the expense of the poor is naive, considering human history. Questions need to be answered — who would profit from the sale of human organs, who would pay for these organs and how?, etc.
These concerns are less important than saving human life only if you believe that this life is all there is. If the end of earthly life is the end of our existence, then it makes sense that the extension of earthly life should be our primary priority. Or does it?
It is a great irony that the same utilitarian philosophy that embraces the sale of human organs for the sake of saving lives also embraces abortion and euthanasia. While life is an observable good, valuing life only really makes sense if the human person has dignity, and if human life has meaning beyond earthly existence. If these elements of human life are missing, then what’s the point of preserving human life that has no value?
On the other hand, if our human life has dignity, then saving human life makes even more sense. We are called to see our lives as a gift exactly because human persons have dignity. To sacrifice human dignity for the sake of saving life makes no sense. If life continues beyond this earthly existence (and contrary to popular “intellectual” diatribe, it is reasonable to believe that it does), how we face our inevitable death is also very important. Equally important is the attitude that human beings take toward each other. In the face of life in heaven, there is a point when we say that preserving human dignity is more important than saving our life.
Finally, Steigerwald’s claim that medical ethicists sit in ivory towers, detached from the real suffering of real people, is just plain ignorant. Medical ethicists are in the trenches every day, working with real people who are experiencing real suffering and real moral dilemmas. Their task is to help people embrace the greatest possible good within their specific difficult circumstances so that patients and families can live or die with true human dignity and in the peace that they have embraced goodness to the best of their ability. Modernists, utilitarians, and materialists who ignore the devastation their derision of transcendent goods such as human dignity rains on our culture live in a fantasy world that will in the end bring us doom in the name of healing.
Steigerwald’s own fantasy world is exposed when he claims that Barak Obama would not alienate anyone by legalizing international organ sale. He has obviously not been listening to the voices debating the value of human dignity vs. human autonomy. By abolishing the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, Obama would open up a can of worms that would take his administration by surprise. America does not need yet one more way to treat the human person as a commodity to be bought and sold.
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Dave Undis says:
As the death toll from the organ shortage mounts, public opinion will eventually support an organ market. Changes in public policy will then follow.
In the mean time, there is an already-legal way to put a big dent in the organ shortage — allocate donated organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die. UNOS, which manages the national organ allocation system in the United States, has the power to make this simple policy change. No legislative action is required.
Americans who want to donate their organs to other registered organ donors don’t have to wait for UNOS to act. They can join LifeSharers, a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. Membership is free at http://www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88. There is no age limit, parents can enroll their minor children, and no one is excluded due to any pre-existing medical condition.
Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. Non-donors should go to the back of the waiting list as long as there is a shortage of organs.
Jeffrey S. Arrowood, MTS says:
Dave’s response prompts me to reiterate an important distinction. It is often assumed that someone who is against a particular solution to a problem does not care about the problem. This is a false conclusion. Organ donation can be a very virtuous act, and Catholics are certainly concerned with improving medical technology in ways that contribute to the quality of human life. However, such medical advances must be authentic human development, protecting humanity’s spiritual as well as physical well-being. Organ donation can be a very virtuous act. Organ commerce is a different story.
While Dave may be right about the public opinion about human organ commerce changing, the moral problems with this practice will always remain. Public opinion is too easily swayed away from what is truly good for us.
Lloyd Cohen says:
Moral arguments on the question of an organ market are often muddled and confused. The argument in favor of compensation for the transfer of organs is sometimes reduced to a caricature. It is certainly not that no moral principle should stand in the way of saving lives. Indeed lives should be sacrificed for principles. So, for example, if
dismembering one person could save the lives of five others no reasonable person would find such a policy morally acceptable. The real question with regard to paying for organs is whether there is any moral principle against such a payment that outweighs the lives saved and the liberty enabled. I can think of none of sufficient weight.
Jeffrey S. Arrowood, MTS says:
What is muddled about the problem of treating a human person as a commodity?
You may certainly have a point if we are talking about compensation for the service surrounding organ transplant rather than paying for the organs themselves. This distinction is certainly important in the adoption of children. Buying and selling children is a morally reprehensible practice. However, adopting our children cost us thousands of dollars for prenatal care, foster care, legal fees and administrative fees. A similar system for organ transplants could certainly be morally acceptable.
It sounds like you are making a proportionalist argument here. It can sometimes be valid to consider the proportion of benefits and burdens. However, as a general rule proportionalism is a vague, subjective and dangerous basis for moral discernment.
The moral principle at stake here is the fundamental principle of human dignity. I am willing to admit that I may be wrong in my judgment on human organ commerce, but you are going to have to convince me that selling human organs does not treat human beings as a commodity. Perhaps the point of disagreement may lie in the honor owed to the body after a human person dies.