>Always the bottom line with these folks....Not to say that
>it's wrong to think of ways to increase organ
>donorship--but harvisting the poor to give to the rich
>doesn't seem like a good idea to me....
I'm sure the rich would agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that it is better if the poor should freely donate their organs to the rich. Having to pay for organs obviously hurts them more than it does us, but of course it isn't a perfect world.
Australia's richest man, Kerry Packer, had a kidney transplant a few years back. Luckily for him his helicopter pilot generously donated one of his organs. Kerry was very grateful by all accounts but I couldn't help thinking that most of us don't have a helicopter pilot to turn to in such a time of need and that perhaps it was not even a good idea to permit people on the wrong side of the employer employee relationship to "freely" donate their body parts to their boss.
The trouble is of course that, given that the employee/employer relationship is not entirely a voluntary one for the employee, it seems possible to imagine circumstances where the donation to one's employer of a spare kidney, or a spare eye perhaps, might not be an entirely "free" choice.
On the other hand, I think we could safely say that any decision by Kerry Packer to donate a kidney to one of his employees would be above any suspicion of economic coercion. Which hints at an answer to another question before us on this list, the definition of a "capitalist". Capitalists seem largely free from economic sanction by individual employees, though in theory they might have to take notice of concerted pressure.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas