Effrenata
11-01-2004, 20:10
OK, so I open up my issues box today to find this:
Hospitals have requested that they be allowed to pay people for donating blood and other bodily organs, such as kidneys.
The Debate
"We remain critically short of blood plasma and various organs," says Effrenata One hospital administrator Akira Rifkin. "Especially hearts. A good heart is hard to find. But if we were allowed to pay for donations, we'd get more of them and could save more lives. Plus the donor takes home a few hundred mercats in compensation. Unless it's a post-mortem donation, of course. In that case we'd pay the family."
[Accept]
"Great idea," says social commentator Jazz McGuffin. "Except for one thing. You know who's going to be selling their organs? Poor people! They'll be so desperate for money that they'll sell their own kidneys. Well, a kidney. This is just another way for the rich to buy themselves a better life at the expense of the poor. It must be outlawed."
[Accept]
Well, here's the problem: My government has already developed Administrative Rules on this issue, roughly to the effect that people can sell any body material that naturally replenishes (i.e., blood, bone marrow, etc.) and health care providers can pay for it. However, trafficking in non-replenishing parts (organs) is a Class One Nuisance and verboten.
So wheretheheck does this leave me? I can't accept either of the game's positions, but I don't want to lose an opportunity to 'advance' by blowing it off, either. Especially when we have such a nicely-crafted regulation to deal with just this issue.
Suggestions, comments, assistance? Anyone run across a similar problem? How did you deal with it?
Bright
Hospitals have requested that they be allowed to pay people for donating blood and other bodily organs, such as kidneys.
The Debate
"We remain critically short of blood plasma and various organs," says Effrenata One hospital administrator Akira Rifkin. "Especially hearts. A good heart is hard to find. But if we were allowed to pay for donations, we'd get more of them and could save more lives. Plus the donor takes home a few hundred mercats in compensation. Unless it's a post-mortem donation, of course. In that case we'd pay the family."
[Accept]
"Great idea," says social commentator Jazz McGuffin. "Except for one thing. You know who's going to be selling their organs? Poor people! They'll be so desperate for money that they'll sell their own kidneys. Well, a kidney. This is just another way for the rich to buy themselves a better life at the expense of the poor. It must be outlawed."
[Accept]
Well, here's the problem: My government has already developed Administrative Rules on this issue, roughly to the effect that people can sell any body material that naturally replenishes (i.e., blood, bone marrow, etc.) and health care providers can pay for it. However, trafficking in non-replenishing parts (organs) is a Class One Nuisance and verboten.
So wheretheheck does this leave me? I can't accept either of the game's positions, but I don't want to lose an opportunity to 'advance' by blowing it off, either. Especially when we have such a nicely-crafted regulation to deal with just this issue.
Suggestions, comments, assistance? Anyone run across a similar problem? How did you deal with it?
Bright