WP…the Obama administration last week asked a San Francisco appeals court to overturn a recent decision that said bone marrow donors can be paid for what their bodies produce.
I wrote about this case here.
Hat tip: Al Roth who has more links.
Repugnant
Previous post: Betting markets in everything
Next post: A good paper and model of (part of) the financial crisis
Focused like a laser beam on the economy that guy.
This argument is just one step removed from those people who say “why are the cops wasting time giving me tickets for running a red light when there are UNSOLVED MURDERS they could be working on!!!”
The reason is because red light tickets are a good revenue source. Murder cases are source of costs.
Yes it is, and it’s a good argument, unlike your argument which compares the trade in bone marrow to violating the traffic law.
urso’s underlying point seems reasonable: One typically has a portfolio of priorities; one cannot exclusively focus on the top priority and move sequentially down the list.
But one can not screw up both.
True. But would it be any better if he had never said he focused on the economy *and* screwed both?
And I do think cops waste plenty of time failing on roads when they could do a little less failing on murders. I happen to have had a murder in the family, and my suspicions from stolen property of cops being mostly form fillers have been confirmed.
Shit. We have cops on roads and on murders. We only started getting fewer murders and fewer car deaths when non-cop stuff happened.
Maybe I should hope Obama does go screw up some niche industry and leave the economy alone.
How about the unsolved Fast and Furious Fiasco?
It was mostly a joke rather than an argument. But the argument could be, prove me wrong, please. Give me one thing to hang my hat on. At the State of the Union we’ll get the Occupy from Obama line which is irrelevant to the too big to fail problem. Just one thing to let me know he’s dropping one iron in the fire. These are the people who promised not to be ideologues.
Direct payments would be permitted. “Mitchell and Institute for Justice lawyer Jeff Rowes got both more and less than they wanted from the 9th Circuit decision. Mitchell said the ruling indicates that his group could directly pay donors rather than offering scholarships or charitable donations.”
The law should be changed to explicitly exclude bone marrow if that is what stakeholders prefer. If the issues are (1) whether bone marrow is technically an organ (which is debated) and (2) whether allowing sale of bone marrow could open vulnerable individuals to exploitative market forces (the reason the National Organ Transplant Act was first passed, as far as I can tell).
The court found that (2) is almost a moot point, since its ruling would allow direct payment and uphold the ban on other transfers of value. I understand why DOJ feels compelled to defend the law: bone marrow can effectively be considered an organ, and the principle of the law applies no less to bone marrow than it does to a kidney.
I think it requires a change the law. Lobby Ron Paul as a lead sponsor.
Well, the exploitation thing is wrong. Also, what is an “organ.” Blood is an organ. There are systems. Some systems can function after some excission. The liver can. Kidneys can’t. Kidneys have the greatest economic rationale for paid sales. The law is outdated and the fact that it is morally wrong is secondary to that it is reality wrong.
Also, what is an “organ.” Blood is an organ.
Semen?
I think you are using the colloquial euphemistic “organ.”
No, blood is not an organ, and freaking stem cells floating free in your blood aren’t just not an organ, they’re not even capable of being an organ, nor are they bone marrow.
It’s not entirely clear, but the idea is that blood is far more an organ than isolated stem cells which, by the way, we didn’t have to carve up babies to obtain.
To me the “organ” distinction is about whether, within a reasonable time after removal, the physiological-state returns to one indistinguishable from the pre-removal state. So classifying marrow as an “organ” seems silly.
With removal it is all a matter of degrees. You coud remove some tissue from any organ without causing long-term damage. The issue is just how much that happens to be.
Most conventional organ transplants seem to demand full organs. Is there a market for live organ pieces?
Liver transplants do not require that, yet it is illegal to sell part of your liver to someone else.
They always fall back on “exploitation” like everyone automatically knows what that means. How exactly are the poor able to be exploited by an organ sale? Is it just that they will make bad decisions due to their lack of money in order to get money? If we are in a general economic situation where the poor can be exploited generally, then they could have their houses bought from them at below-market prices for example. They could work too hard. They could sell their blood at below market rates. What makes organs special in this regard? I still don’t get it.
The irreplaceablity?
That wouldn’t apply to bone-marrow or parts of livers, or blood.
@NAME REDACTED
Absolutely; and that’s exactly my argument why marrow or blood should not be treated as organs.
Partial livers? Now that’s a borderline case that’s really hard. I don’t know.
This is my point. If the law talks about organs, than rather us sitting around debating what an organ is, they need to fix the broken law.
You can donate a quarter of your live and it will grow back, and that quarter can grow into a full liver inside the patient.
Hrm, also incidentally this reasoning would make it illegal to sell eggs as unlike sperm eggs are not replaceable (the woman just has oodles of them)
Selling eggs and sperm is indeed illegal in many countries, including Britain and Canada.
The same moral stance that makes prostitution illegal?
Not exactly.
The underlying question is “Should voluntary, transactions between two adults ever be illegal?”
I’m not judging – in fact I’m in favor of letting people decide what to do with their bodies.
That includes prostitution, organ donation, and abortion.
Considering all the horrible things this guy has done with the judicial system and civil liberties you focus on THIS triviality?
triviality? People die because of this.
People would still die any way – it would just be those who couldn’t afford to pay. Oh wait I guess you don’t consider them people
Actually, the people who could afford to pay would remove themselves from waiting lists making space for people who cannot afford to pay. So both rich and poor people die because of Obama and that decision.
But then there’s nothing left over for the people who can’t pay. No one is going to give up bone marrow because they can make a few bucks, the supply isn’t going to move anywhere it’s just another break for the rich
Sure. And all the better because it is trivial. Someone who fails in the things they shouldn’t even bother with can’t be trusted with tough questions.
“triviality? People die because of this.”
Ha! Only rich capital owners. You silly.
Of all the repugnant things Obama has done, this ranks among the slightest.
Trying to see people die for no good reason? ODS?
So, what about Congress prohibiting the sale of human embryos? Or trying to prohibit them from even being used in research on method to save lives because that might lead to a commercial market for harvesting eggs to be fertilized to save human lives as a for profit industry?
The goal of harvesting bone marrow is not the marrow, but the stem cells, the same as harvesting eggs and fertilizing them to create stem cells.
You do not harvest marrow to get stem cells. They are different procedures.
and what about embryos? Why would I care, as long as you’re not tearing them out of a pregnant woman against her will?
stem cell collection is done by, basically, giving filtered blood. Marrow donation is done by taking a huge needle in the pelvis.
And when my to-be feahtr-in-law saw it, he made sure to point out that the colors I had picked were “not complimentary, not complimentary at all”. Ain’t family grand?
3cgwf6 awzfhkwvvsru
qS1Qbj oillgnwohgnl
Remind me of all the MR posts calling America’s use of torture “repugnant”?
The repugnant thing here is this blog.
This is an economics blog, not a politics blog. Alex uses “repugnant” as a call-back to the description that people are against things they find “repugnant.” In other words, if economically ignorant people changed their “repugnancy” sign on this issue, we’d go from bad economic policy to good economic policy.
“The panel’s ruling rests on legal errors of exceptional importance, threatens to disrupt current patient care and undermines Congress’s clear policy of encouraging voluntary bone marrow donations,” the Justice Department said in asking the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to rehear the case.
Okay, “legal errors” is for the shysters to screw up. I’m sure there are plenty. But does anyone really believe this is about good law and due process? That’s laughable, but for people who want things to happen and not just more gibberish to argue about it’s also irrelevant. Even a poor decision process that gets it right in turning over a bad law is fine and shouldn’t be actively pursued by The Prez. How are dissociated stem cells an organ? Tell me, please. But again, it doesn’t really matter. Does anyone really believe modestly compensating donors will “disrupt current patient care” in any way that we wouldn’t want to disrupt it? What is objectively good about “voluntary” donations when we obviously want MORE donors. Why did the market test in Israel work for kidneys and the incredibly less complicated stem cells procedure will be “disrupted?” No, obviously what will be disrupted is entrenched rent-earners.
Thus, repugnant.
The fact that you can’t sell every one of your organs as one free person to another is utterly disgusting, and a wonderful example of how socialist nuts and religious maniacs unite to destroy the world.
The best part are feminists who are against it, but insist on the unconstrained right to abortion because “it’s their bodies”. If you hold both those views, as many do, your brain is utterly unsavable mush.
Would be hilarious if not so sad.
Alex sees it as an economic issue. Supporters of the law see it as a moral issue. Regardless if it actually saves more lives, some people find the “commodification” of the human body to be a morally repulsive way of going about it. The same way that we find cannibalism or prostitution morally repulsive, even though their legalization may save more lives. The ends don’t always justify the means.
I’m not saying I agree, but to try to classify that position as “repugnant” trivializes the serious moral reservations a great deal of the population holds.
Quoting – “The same way that we find cannibalism or prostitution morally repulsive, even though their legalization may save more lives. The ends don’t always justify the means.”
When personal freedom AND “saving more lives” are on the SAME SIDE the ends ALWAYS justify the means. Anyone against that is a totalitarian maniac or a religious fanatic.
It is indeed exactly repugnant to use force to stop others from doing a voluntary transaction that makes them both better off (in one case in a life-saving way). There aren’t many better uses of the word.
Oh, and btw, making prostitution illegal for adults is repugnant even w/o the life saving part (though I do declare there were some times I was so lonesome I took some comfort there…). Again, take the feminist who insists she can kills a fetus (sometimes far along) because “it’s her body” but is against prostitution (where apparently her body is the state’s or God’s), then tell me that lady’s mind is not mush.
Troll!
I did not read the ruling or all of the comments but could you pay people to register? Could you even offer the payment when someone donates blood. “Thank you for your donation of blood today, we will also offer you $10 dollars to give one more vial of blood to be tested and put on the blood marrow donors list. If you are a match then we can contact you and ask if you would be willing to donate marrow for no compensation”. Just by reading it seems that the issue is finding matches, you could probably find someone willing to donate for free if you had more matches available. Or am I missing some part of the problem? So I checked, turns out you have to pay in some cases to be on the registry? So who is going to pay for the marrow donation? Seems like the real business opportunity is to create a company that pays people to register and in turn charges doctors to use that registry to make matches. Why is that not being done?
Is “defending the Constitution” as president repugnant?
Is upholding the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 more repugnant that President Reagan signing it into law?
Statement on Signing the National Organ Transplant Act
October 19, 1984
Today I am signing into law S. 2048, the National Organ Transplant Act. This legislation covers an area in which I have been personally involved: promoting the donation of organs, especially liver transplants for children. I am pleased that the Congress worked with the administration to produce a bill that will enhance this effort.
This bipartisan legislation provides a framework that should help increase the overall supply of much needed organs and improve our ability to match donor organs with individuals in need of transplants. Over the last 3 years, I have urged the American people to remember that many lives could be saved through generous donations of life-saving organs. I have been encouraged by the response of the media and the public to this compassionate cause. This act will serve to support this ongoing work.
:
I believe that this act strikes a proper balance between private and public sector efforts to promote organ transplantation, which should encourage families with loved ones who are awaiting a suitable organ. I am pleased to sign the National Organ Transplant Act that will support this humanitarian effort.
Congress wrote the law in 1984, and President Reagan signed it, representing the will of the voters. Is it repugnant for unelected judges to override the will of the voters, when the voters can petition Congress and vote out those who do not respond the We the People on an issue.
On the matter of killing “terrorists” and invading the privacy of Americans and detaining persons without any rights, those are clearly the result of the due process of law by Congress which was elected to represent We the People, and with the majority of We the People apparently anxious to force the president to do those things many people that conservatives have described as anti-American, weak, siding with the terrorists, and even “dangerous” as seemed to be the unanimous verdict of the three people running against that “dangerous” Ron Paul for the Republican nomination for president. And the crowd exercising their free speech right, (that was suppressed earlier this week by the liberal media), boo’d Ron Paul and cheered when he was called dangerous.
And in House hearings in 2003 where Alex position was presented in a petition, this was also offered in a petition opposing legalizing sales:
See Pius XII, Papal Teachings: The Human Body, p.376.
—————————————————————————
4. It is forbidden for any form of organ donation, be it by a
living donor or from a corpse, to involve any mere instrumentalization
of the person from whom the organ is taken. This prohibition includes
any mere self-instrumentalization by a living donor. John Paul II
states, “The body cannot be treated as a merely physical or biological
entity, nor can its organs ever be used as items of sale or exchange.
Such a reductive materialist conception would lead to a merely
instrumental use of the body and therefore of the person. In such a
perspective, organ transplantation and the grating of tissue would no
longer correspond to an act of donation but would amount to the
dispossession or plundering of the body.
As liberals and Democrats are constantly attacked for imposing secular values on Christians and being Christian hating, why would any Democrats come out strongly in favor of secular organ sales in opposition to Christian teaching in a Christian nation? Just getting government out of our bedrooms and out of love and marriage is hard enough given the Republican’s constant attack on Democrats as imposing liberal values by forcing Christians to be gay, to have abortions, and with this, to sell their vital organs while alive.
Uh, yes, in this case.
And that conservatives are idiots too in this case (usually liberals are far dumber) does not make this kind of totalitarian action ok. But nice try with the Reagan thing.
“Is “defending the Constitution” as president repugnant” every president for the last, well, longer then I’ve been alive has thought so.
“Repugnant” is too strong a word. Such a view is probably more revealing of the author than of reality. See Albert Ellis’s writings on Irrational Beliefs, particularly Awfulizing and Damning. ‘Damning’ idea that when people act obnoxiously and unfairly, you should blame and damn them, and see them as bad, wicked, or rotten individuals. This can be applied toward others, or to one’s self, or both. ‘Awfulizing’ is where one has to view things as awful, terrible, and horrible when things go wrong. One might also look up ‘Catastrophizing’. Choosing to live with a mental orientation toward hyperbole leads to an anxious, unhappy state where one feels menaced. It is an unhappy state of evasion, as facts that mitigate the extreme state the viewer perceives are ignored in favor of the benefits of reacting to things in such an extreme fashion. Thus, the court decision isn’t ‘disappointing’, it’s ‘repugnant’.