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Give Me Your Kidney

May 31st, 2007
By Michael van der Galien

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Yesterday, I published a post called Who Gets the Kidney, about a new television show (to be aired Friday) in the Netherlands. Several bloggers commented on it. Jules Crittenden wrote:

I stand in awe. I thought we ruled the world of stunningly bizarre, somewhat disturbing and tasteless schlock. They’ve pushed it out to the edge.

Ed Morrissey responded with a very thoughful, and personal post, one that should be read in full. His wife, Ed explains, “would not have survived long enough to get a cadaver donor in the present system” if they “had not found a donor” for her themselves. Ed explains that the system currently used (for donors) does not work, and people die because of it. In short, the system has to be fixed. Ed admits:

When we ration irrationally, we get irrational results. The BNN show tomorrow night is an example of this. Denied the ability to acquire a kidney through some rational method, these kidney-failure victims will abase themselves in public in order to save their lives. Denied a rational method of receiving compensation for her donation, the terminally ill woman will have to choose other, less objective means for rationing her kidneys. It sounds terrible, and it is, but you’d better believe that I would have jumped at the chance the first few months of this year to get one of those kidneys, had we not already found a donor.

I agree with Ed that there is a problem (to deny the existence of this problem would be ludicrous) but I have some issues with an overly enthusiastic approach (not that Ed is arguing in favor of such an overly enthusiastic approach):
- one, I am afraid that the TV show will accomplish nothing
- two, I wonder whether we should do everything to solve the problem? Literally everything? I would say no. There are limits. We have to save as many as people as possible, but not if doing so means that we downgrade ourselves so much that we consider matters of life and death to be entertainment
- three, why not make a documentary about a person who donates one of his or her organs (while still being alive) to help out a friend, family member or even a stranger?



This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 5:56 am and is filed under TV Shows, The Netherlands, Entertainment. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 
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