Are you really saying that these lines are not eugenic fantasy?

That is not obtuse. It's true. Making up some unknown child to justify not giving a girl with brain damage a kidney transplant is eugenic fantasy.

I find this hypocritical coming from someone who actually DID make baseless accusations and then tried to justify it.

This post was last modified: 01-23-2012 12:31 PM by Gedrene.

Grrr. The hospital pretty much gave the reason that the girl is not going to get a transplant as being that there aren't enough to go around. It's not "making up some hypothetical child", it's recognising things as they stand. Do you really think that she wouldn't get one if they had spare ones? It's a sad fact of life that some people have to lose out due to scarce resources. Harsh, I know, but don't shoot the bearer of bad news. Did you really think she's the only child the hospital has who's in need of a transplant, just because she's the only one mentioned?

I believe that all lives have equal worth, okay? Therefore, the life of a child who is not brain damaged is just as valuable as hers. So, the only way to make a decision is to look beyond this, at other factors - their respective worths cancel out, so we've got to look at things such as whether they'll be able to get a job, be a net contributor or a net consumer etc. It's not some "Eugenics fantasy", it's the way things are.

To illustrate in a somewhat more mathematical way, say we allocate people points based on various factors, such as how much they'll likely contribute to society, how independently they'll be able to live etc. If we set their innate worth as equal to infinity, we can cancel that down to zero, because it's the same for both. The "hypothetical child" would no doubt score higher than the girl, so I would be ethically oblidged to give them the transplant. I'd hate doing it, in the same way I'd hate having to decide who to rescue in a burning nursery, and I'd be cursing insufficient funding for biotechnology while I did it, but...

Did you read the original post?

No mention of shortages. At all.

It even says in the link:

She was considered not eligible because she is retarded, not because of a shortage.

So the claim of needing to choose is invented.

This post was last modified: 01-23-2012 01:09 PM by Gedrene.

You, sir, are a fool. Do you not wonder why they need to decide who's eligible?

Organ transplants are notorious for having shortages. Why should kidneys be any different?

You don't have any proof that the decision is due to a shortage. Both the first post and the source say it is a a vague thing about quality of life. You claimed that the hospital said another child required it. It doesn't say that anywhere.

This post was last modified: 01-23-2012 01:17 PM by Gedrene.

+1

Also the "eugenic" claim is ridiculous. Magneto based his opinion, rightly or wrongly, on potential quality of life and contribution to society. Not on eugenic principles.

Deciding not to give a girl a kidney transplant on quality of life and contribution to society are eugenic principles.


And he went further. He based his claim on the belief that there were other children and of there being a shortage

He has yet shown no evidence of shortages or of other children.

The number of people waiting for an organ far exceeds the number of organs available for transplantation.

Doctors therefore have to make the best use of limited resources.

To do this they dont just consider quality of life, they also look at quantity of life. Such decisions are made using cold impartial mathematical equations.

(In the US these equations are under review. Anybody interested in the maths behind this can study the pdf at the bottom of this link.

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6622.html

This girl is not just brain damaged she has Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome so her quality and quantity of life are limited. The doctors are right to tell these parents that she has no chance of getting to the top of the waiting list under the current criteria so they can make alternative plans.

These parents would appear to have two options, they donate  one of their own kidneys or buy a kidney from the third world, (a despicable practise) and raise the money for a private operation.

But before doing that these parents will have to make some cold hard calculations of there own. With their daughters medical conditions the operation or the drugs she will have to take after the transplant could kill her.

A horrible situation for any parent.

Oops double post

This post was last modified: 01-23-2012 02:21 PM by heterodox.

Did anyone read the source? The parents are donating via their family:
http://www.wolfhirschhorn.org/2012/01/am...ick-walls/

So lack of availability isn't right. At all.

This post was last modified: 01-23-2012 02:34 PM by Gedrene.

Since I don't really know how to use the copy and paste function on my iPad I will let you google eugenics yourself. Then you can eat my shorts.

Gedrene, did you even read my previous posts? I have no problem with them donating a kidney to her. That's not what I've been arguing. Don't try to change the topic so that you can claim to be arguing something different.

However, what I did ask was whether there is a size limit which will prevent an adult donating to a child, in which case there is very little hope for the girl. I was saying that, if this is the case, she should not recieve a transplant.

Even if the family finds a donor, it would usually need to be another child. An ethical minefield no matter how you spin it.

The technique of transplanting an adult kidney into a child is still at the "pioneering" stage.

Where's the evidence for that?

I was replying to Heterodox, not you.
You did say that on page two.
That wasn't my problem. I came in when you said this:

And that was wrong because you didn't establish that lack of kidneys was a problem.
As it was already stated it was about some argument of quality of life AND ONLY quality of life. No case of numbers was mentioned. The doctors said that the only reason was because she was mentally retarded.

That is a eugenic argument. Your attempt to say that there are other children who need the kidney is not backed up anywhere by the source of the original post. It is purely speculative.

This post was last modified: 01-23-2012 03:23 PM by Gedrene.