Sometimes you find out that someone has already worried about something that you haven't even thought of worrying about. I worry about some aspects of transplantation, and I sometimes think about driverless cars, but here's an article about a worry that is nowhere near the top of my list. However the short article below (it's a comment on another article) raises some interesting points about how society may want to rethink increasing organ donation as we see (I hope) ever fewer deaths from automobile accidents:
How Do You Donate Life When People Are Not Dying: Transplants in the Age of Autonomous Vehicles
Zoe Corin, Roee Furman, Shira Lifshitz, Ophir Samuelov & Dov Greenbaum (2018) , The American Journal of Bioethics, 18:7, 27-29, DOI: 10.1080/15265161.2018.1478024
"While there are differences of opinion as to when autonomous or self-driving cars will actually invade our roads—some car manufacturers are predicting consumer-ready self-driving cars as early as 2021—there is broad consensus that their inevitability is assured. And while there are clear positive social consequences that will result from self-driving cars and trucks, there are also a number of often less appreciated negative externalities. Balanced against the saved lives, minimized commutes, reduction in pollution, and general decrease in daily stress are the driving-related job losses and the reality that there will be fewer organ donors."
...
"There are no quick fixes, and current laws already place significant restrictions on the organ acquisition process. Buying and selling organs is nearly universally objectionable, unethical, and illegal (Ludin 2008). Some countries even ban any benefit, or any form of valuable consideration whatsoever, in exchange for an organ (Caulfield et al. 2014
).
How Do You Donate Life When People Are Not Dying: Transplants in the Age of Autonomous Vehicles
Zoe Corin, Roee Furman, Shira Lifshitz, Ophir Samuelov & Dov Greenbaum (2018) , The American Journal of Bioethics, 18:7, 27-29, DOI: 10.1080/15265161.2018.1478024
"While there are differences of opinion as to when autonomous or self-driving cars will actually invade our roads—some car manufacturers are predicting consumer-ready self-driving cars as early as 2021—there is broad consensus that their inevitability is assured. And while there are clear positive social consequences that will result from self-driving cars and trucks, there are also a number of often less appreciated negative externalities. Balanced against the saved lives, minimized commutes, reduction in pollution, and general decrease in daily stress are the driving-related job losses and the reality that there will be fewer organ donors."
...
"There are no quick fixes, and current laws already place significant restrictions on the organ acquisition process. Buying and selling organs is nearly universally objectionable, unethical, and illegal (Ludin 2008). Some countries even ban any benefit, or any form of valuable consideration whatsoever, in exchange for an organ (Caulfield et al. 2014
).
...
"However, even these universal attitudes have some specific exceptions: In many countries, blood donors are paid, and sperm and egg donors can receive thousands of dollars in remuneration. But just because a handful of tissue donations have been commodified (albeit sometimes obfuscated as gifts with financial consideration), it is not clear that this cash for contribution system will expand anytime soon to include other types of living donations, such as liver lobes or kidneys. To wit: While New York sperm donors can make more than a thousand dollars a month (Lewinnov 2016
), surrogacy contracts are still void and unenforceable by law (New York 2014).
Nevertheless, in light of the need for organs, a number of jurisdictions have tried to indirectly incentivize donation, either through financial or non-financial mechanisms. Such incentives include paying for funeral costs of non-living donors, or for the out-of-pocket expenses directly associated with transplantation (US 2004)."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment