Ethics and Organs- thefts or hoax

[welsh]

This morning on NPR's the Village Pharmacy, they had a discussion on the ethics of organ donors and the theft of organs.

Some of you might have seen "Dirty Pretty Things" which deals with illegal immigrants in England selling organs, or you might have heard the urban legend of the person who wakes up in a bathtub full of ice with their kidney missing.

But is it a hoax?
http://www.nonprofit.net/hoax/catalog/Kidney_Theft/transpla.html

Some folks want you to think so.

But

In a follow-up to the Bellagio Task Force, Professors Scheper-Hughes and Cohen (Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley), with support from the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) conducted ethnographic research in sites in Brazil, India, and South Africa during 1997-1998. Their findings reveal:

1. strong and persistent race, class, and gender inequalities and injustices in the acquisition, harvesting and distribution of organs;
violation of national laws prohibiting the sale of organs;
2. the collapse of cultural and religious sanctions against body dismemberment and commercial use in the face of the enormous market pressures in the transplant industry;
3. the appearance of new forms of traditional debt peonage in which the commodified kidney occupies a critical space;
4. persistent and flagrant human rights violations of cadavers in public morgues, with organs and tissues removed without any consent for international sale;
5. the spread and persistence of narratives of terror concerning the theft and disappearance of bodies and body parts globally.

more?
http://sunsite3.berkeley.edu/biotech/organswatch/

freaky.

 

[l0s7 4 lyf3]

Donating Organs in the case that you die = good thing to do, you'll die anyway so why not help other people

Stealing organs in hopes of selling them for personal profit = unacceptable

 

[welsh]

That reminds me of a story about stealing sperm I have to return to.

 

[c0ldst33ltrs4u]

"Dirty Pretty Things" saw it, loved the ending, that guy had it coming. The movie also made me think, a lot. All that could be stopped if we could just accept cloning organs as an alternative. Just think: you could get a full set of spare body parts, fully compatible. If they could clone an entire person, why couldn't they clone a heart, liver, lung, or any other organ? The drawback would be, ethics aside, that the Earth may quickly become crowded, not enough people would die....
Anyway stealing my wallet is one thing, but my organs are just too much! This is a new brand of slavery in the making, trading in human flesh, just smaller parts