Should an altruistic organ donor be allowed to restrict their donation to a specific group of people? (e.g. women, gingers)

night_of_knee@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 66 points –

An extreme version of this is: What should the German health service do if someone says they are willing to donate a kidney as long as it doesn't go to a Jew?

On the one hand, nobody is forced to donate a kidney and by forbidding this we're making things worse for an innocent patient. On the other hand, it can be seen as the state sanctioning this kind of discrimination.

58

You are viewing a single comment

In Germany what you describe won’t be possible: organ donation from a living donor is only allowed if both person are quite close to each other (partners, family and so on). Organ donation from dead people is anonymous: the doctors that take the organs out of the dead person doesn’t know who receives them. Only Eurotransplant knows.

I think that’s a very good system. Organs should be given and received as anonymous as possible.

Are you sure Germany doesn't have an altruistic kidney donation program?

This document from 2016 agrees with this assertion (bottom of second page).

It seems such a waste, this podcast makes it sound an amazing idea https://freakonomics.com/podcast/make-me-a-match-update/

From the paper:

The legal basis for a living donation in Germany is a relationship or close personal connection between donor and recipient.