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[Frumple]

mumblemumblemutter. Mont, can you just say what you're wanting to say instead of trying to win an argument by catching someone else in a moment of miscommunication?

Let your argument stand on its merits instead of the merits of other positions, et al.

[GlyphGryph]

I'm not even opposed to selling organs. But the argument that's its an autonomy issue, especially one on par with the rest of what we've been discussing, is just complete, unsupported bullshit on your part.

[SalmonGod]

I rather think that the self-ownership issue is overshadowed by how much the question highlights the true nature of our society, and how uncomfortable that makes us.

[ChairmanPoo]

Fact is, there ARE situations that are clearly undesirable from a social point of view, and/or are clearly harmful for the individual involved. This one is an obvious example, and a gross violation of medical ethics. It's not like it's the only one. You can't sell yourself into slavery, or offer yourself up as a human sacrifice for a cult, either. I don't think I'm arguing something particularily alien or hard to understand.

Involuntary expropriation of private property is more of a left-wing dictatorship thing, that would treat an individual's body as something that belonged to the greater community

There are other forms of coercion than direct ones. As I explained, actually. Which is why the whole "self-ownership" argument is a red herring. 

[NinjaBoot]

I'm not even opposed to selling organs. But the argument that's its an autonomy issue, especially one on par with the rest of what we've been discussing, is just complete, unsupported bullshit on your part.

It ultimately comes down to choice.  People should have the choice to do these things to themselves if they so choose. 

For the sake of argument, just for clarification, we are referring to organ selling in terms of creating a market for those who may need it?  Or are we going to include everyone, including those who donate their organs willingly to help another? 

[GlyphGryph]

It ultimately comes down to choice.  People should have the choice to do these things to themselves if they so choose.

Selling an organ isn't something you "do to yourself" - commerce is not personal autonomy.

It is something that I agree should be generally free, and we should be allowed to do - I've had tirades before about things like licensing and regulations that restrict basic commerce.

But it is not something based on personal autonomy, control of the self. By definition, commerce involves an action between and impacting two people, and isn't really related to whether or not you can do something to yourself.

[RedKing]

I could certainly see a future in which, absent declaring bankruptcy protection, your organs would be considered part of the assets that can be liquidated to pay creditors. Up to a non-lethal point. After all, you don't actually need both lungs or both kidneys to survive.

Well, that would be a society where you have no ownership over your body, as any commerce related to your body, if treated as private property would need to be voluntary. Involuntary expropriation of private property is more of a left-wing dictatorship thing, that would treat an individual's body as something that belonged to the greater community, or anybody else besides one's self.

o_O
Are you telling me you've never heard of repossession? Or court-ordered liquidation of assets? Involuntary expropriation of private property to pay off incurred debt to creditors happens every damn day. All I'm saying is that if you argue that individuals should be free to sell their organs in the name of commerce, then creditors have legal ground to argue that those same organs constitute financial assets and are subject to liquidation.

You owe a shitload of money to someone and don't go into bankruptcy, they can legally come take your house, your car, all your worldly belongings.

[GlyphGryph]

See:
Repo: The Genetic Opera

[Descan]

I would actually vote for someone who wanted to make donating your body and organs after death the default position. I'd accept it if there was an opt-out for religious or personal reasons, but I think that a lot of people want to, or at least would be willing to donate their organs and body after death, but never get around to the necessary paperwork.

[FearfulJesuit]

Fact is, there ARE situations that are clearly undesirable from a social point of view, and/or are clearly harmful for the individual involved. This one is an obvious example, and a gross violation of medical ethics. It's not like it's the only one. You can't sell yourself into slavery, or offer yourself up as a human sacrifice for a cult, either. I don't think I'm arguing something particularily alien or hard to understand.

There are people who do, though. I know it's mostly in the BDSM community, but I think there are people who sell themselves as slaves who don't get off on it.

[SalmonGod]

There are arguments in favor of chattel slavery over wage slavery, actually.  There were even slaves in history who said that they preferred it, after being freed and spending some time working for pay.

A chattel slave is your personal property.  You purchase them as a long-term investment.  You want them healthy and capable of performing whatever function you intend for as long as possible.  Causing them any sort of harm is literally the same as buying a new tv and scraping your keys all over the screen after getting it home.  You have diminished its usefulness and made it impossible to re-sell.

A wage slave is not your personal property... so you have no reason to care about them.  It's more like renting a person than owning, except you're not actually renting them from anybody except themselves.  So you have no obligations to their well-being outside of the employment contract.  Your only economic incentive to care about their well-being is proportional to how easy they are to replace, which is really really easy for the vast majority of occupations. 

There are only two major benefits for the employee under wage slavery:  they have some theoretical ability to choose who they work for, and their unbreakable ownership of their own bodies means that no one else has a legal right to directly harm them.  How these benefits work out in practice is debatable, but highly variable at best.

Of course, both systems are absolutely fucking horrible, in my opinion.  I'm only saying that the comparison between them isn't as black and white most people assume.

[Truean]

I could certainly see a future in which, absent declaring bankruptcy protection, your organs would be considered part of the assets that can be liquidated to pay creditors. Up to a non-lethal point. After all, you don't actually need both lungs or both kidneys to survive.

Well, that would be a society where you have no ownership over your body, as any commerce related to your body, if treated as private property would need to be voluntary. Involuntary expropriation of private property is more of a left-wing dictatorship thing, that would treat an individual's body as something that belonged to the greater community, or anybody else besides one's self.

o_O
Are you telling me you've never heard of repossession? Or court-ordered liquidation of assets? Involuntary expropriation of private property to pay off incurred debt to creditors happens every damn day. All I'm saying is that if you argue that individuals should be free to sell their organs in the name of commerce, then creditors have legal ground to argue that those same organs constitute financial assets and are subject to liquidation.

You owe a shitload of money to someone and don't go into bankruptcy, they can legally come take your house, your car, all your worldly belongings.

Yes, and I've done this with assets. Do not fool yourselves, if organs are classified as assets then absent some prohibition, they could be claimed to satisfy a judgment lien. Thankfully, they are not assets and numerous prohibitions are in place.

There's a growing trend that everything is for sale. Apparently, that includes ethics, morality, and human dignity. Allegedly, in the magical bullshit phrase "the free market" (which is as overplayed as it is misapplied) will fix anything and everything. Never mind the very real fact that bargaining power isn't equal (a key assumption of a free market) and that this is doubly so with people in incredible poverty or faced with severe economic challenges. We won't even touch what it does to people in third world countries. The choice is often literally to let them cut you up and sell you off piece by piece or starve to death. Then there's the blatant prisoner abuse in much of the world as it is without all of this adding to it....

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/03/world/meast/pleitgen-sinai-organ-smugglers/index.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20126993-10391704/organ-theft-guilty-plea-spotlights-illegal-organ-trade/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/24/illegal-organ-trafficking_n_244686.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/nyregion/30organs.html?pagewanted=all

There is no way and can be no way to track or distinguish a stolen organ from a 'donated' one, and that's one of the main reasons its illegal (pipe down with your suggestions, it's all been done and failed). Quite frankly when you're dying you don't care and you don't wanna know which makes it even worse. All of the theories for tracking this crap fail, because reality differs from the theory and if you don't get that, then you're not paying attention.

It's funny, all this bullshit from people saying they have such rights not to be interfered with by the big bad government but let's regulate the shit out of women and chop up people who don't have money to sell them to people who do have money. Yes, that's exactly what it's about.

Those donor pools everyone is complaining about? They will get worse if you can just sell organs. As it stands, it is already prohibitively expensive to get these operations, and now let's add an additional cost? So basically you have yet another hurdle to get over if you wanna live if you're poor.... Bad enough you need a transplant and can barely pay for the operation itself, but now, well, let's double that cost.... Once again, the rich get to live and the poor.... Well.... Too bad for you....  Want proof? Public schools v. private schools. Of course it's better for the wealthy who can afford them, but it shits on everyone else. If we really care about a guaranteed right to an equal education, which every child is legally entitled to, then we should have everyone in the same school. If we really care about human dignity and human rights....

Moreover, how the hell is prostitution illegal if organ trafficking isn't going to be? Either life is scared or its for sale? Pick one. I am so sick of vote grabbing politicians and the masses that fall for it. Get out of people's bodies and don't let rich people chop them up. <-- simple, correct but not vote catching....

You wanna fix the organ shortage: Stem cell research.

O but we don't make as much money off that and it doesn't agree with certain of our fickle beliefs....

How about cloning?

Na, let's not solve the problem in the best way possible; let's just get upset and complain....

[Vector]

I've got to say, I still think cloning humans for organs is unethical.  Stem cell research?  Yes please.  Clone babies: insta-horror right there.

PPE: Never mind, read the link and it looks fine.  Once we get into surrogate mother territory is when I start getting really nervous.

[SalmonGod]

There's a growing trend that everything is for sale. Apparently, that includes ethics, morality, and human dignity.

Never mind that there is also more chattel slavery around the world than at any other point in history, despite being illegal in every single country.  I guess it's only illegal for poor people, because the law is for sale, too.

Here's the basic principle we all need to look at.  Anything that can legally be traded is just another thing that the upper class can take from the lower class.  A poor enough family will even have members sell their own lives, so that the rest can have some material ability to survive.

[Lysabild]

Public schools v. private schools.

Finland.