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Legalization of organ trafficking

שו”תCategory: philosophyLegalization of organ trafficking
asked 8 years ago

Hello Rabbi,
Recently, I was debating again about the issue of kidney donation, and I came up with an idea that could perhaps address the macro problem of those waiting for a transplant by legalizing organ trafficking in Israel. What do you think about that? (There is an entry on Wikipedia in English that expands on the issue a bit ).
On the surface, it seems to me that the main reason for denying the legalization of organ trafficking is to prevent the exploitation of people in financial distress to be tempted and sell their organs. But what lies behind this argument is the assumption that kidney donation is an act that involves a lot of risk and people in financial distress may be tempted without exercising appropriate judgment regarding the degree of risk. But the assumption of high risk is less true today in light of the development of modern medicine, which has made the process relatively safe.


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מיכי Staff answered 8 years ago
Hello Oren. I haven’t thought about this issue in depth enough, but on the surface I don’t see a problem even with selling organs because of distress. This is a democratic country and a person is supposed to make decisions for themselves. Perhaps there is a place to appoint a committee to see whether that person is not doing something stupid (meaning he is in a situation where it is dangerous for him and yet takes a risk because of distress). In any other case, I see no reason to sell organs.

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