Commodification with a plausibly human face
Eric over at SoapBlog Chicago lines up the House votes of Illinois Reps on Federal Funding for embryonic Stem Cell research.
I like the way these Marxists in the UK see it,
Although most of the ethical debate has focused on the status of the embryo, this is to define ethics with no reference to global or gender justice. There has been little or no debate about possible exploitation of women, particularly of ovum donors from the South. Countries of the South without national ethics committees or guidelines may be particularly vulnerable: although there is increasing awareness of the susceptibility of poorer countries to abuses in research ethics, very little has been written about how they might be affected by the enormously profitable new technologies exploiting human tissue. Even in the UK, although the new Medical Research Council guidelines make a good deal of the 'gift relationship', what they are actually about is commodification. If donors believe they are demonstrating altruism, but biotechnology firms and researchers use the discourse of commodity and profit, we have not 'incomplete commodification' but complete commodification with a plausibly human face. [my emphasis]Sometimes I think this Red=Republicans / Blue=Democrats paradigm really makes sense. Guess I'm still a Red. Just like back in College.
12 comments:
In some countries there are rumors that people will sell kidneys.
Per Baar, it is time to stop kidney transplants?
You bet this should be stopped. It's raw exploitation. From Progressive News Service,
Health experts are concerned about Pakistan's unregulated and fast growing kidney transplant trade, where foreigners can buy kidneys from impoverished Pakistanis in contravention of established medical norms.
And here's a radical Capitalist arguing otherwise,
My conclusion is that markets in organs are the best available way to enable persons with defective organs to get transplants much more quickly than under the present system. I do not find the arguments against allowing the sale of organs compelling, especially when weighed against the number of lives that would be saved by the increased supply stimulated by financial incentives.
call me Eugene V Debs I guess.
Bill,
Skeeter's question is not whether the sale of organs should be stopped, but whether the transplant of organs should be stopped because of the possiblity of the sale of organs.
I believe that Skeeter feels that his hypothetical demonstrates that the mere threat of commodification should not lead to a treatment's prohibition.
-- S.C.A.M.
A transplant using a purchased kidney should not be performed.
I believe it's illegal in the US.
The threat of commodification of human tissue is real. It has potential for gross exploitation.
Tissue harvesting should be closely regulated and instead, in the case of embyronic stem cells, we get the worst kind of demagogery (e.g. Edwards during the campaign) on a very threatening issue.
I find Democrat's lack of seriousness on this issue very troubling.
Let me get this right:
An infertile couple wants to pay somebody for an egg, to be used in donor egg invitro fertilization.
You want a law to block that?
You think that is any of the government's business?
That is exactly why I vote against people like Bush and our own Peraica. I favor limited government. They don't.
Yes, I would block any sale of human tissue.
Yes I think it's the gov's business.
We have an amendment forbidding the sale of entire people. We should forbid the sale of people as parts; or embryos...
...and I consider that progressive.
I don't need God, Christ, Bible, or whatever to get me here either.
Simple humanism works.
Your comments show the complete shame that the right has become.
It went from getting government off our backs and out of our bedrooms to effectively banning in vitro because it offends their religious sensibility.
I know another county where the religious right controls -- Iran.
Paul Johnson wrote.
It is the essence of geopolitics to be able to distinguish between different degrees of evil.
There is a difference between a Hamiltonian Republic and Iran's Theocracy and that so many Liberals have a hard time seeing that (or even seeing the diff between Iran and Jeffersonian libertarianism) is what's going to make everyone a conservative.
A link to my blog on the most recent case of a woman sentenced to death by stoning in Iran for people interested in how the Iranian Gov gets on peoples backs.
When you start telling people that in vitro should effectively be outlawed because it infringes upon your religious views, then yes, you have crossed to the Iranian side.
Free government contemplates government where people can do what they want as long as they are not injuring others. Donor egg in vitro is a matter between consenting adults and their doctors. For many couples it is their only way to achieve pregnancy. It is none of the government's business.
The deliberate creation of embryos for such research was banned by unanimous votes on Capital Hill.
That means every Democrat and every Republican voted against the very scenario you posted on.
Puts an end to your discussion of hypothetical worst case pictures (at least in the US, England may be different).
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