TABOOS
You hear on the news that a wealthy, infertile couple tried to buy
a baby from a poor, single woman for $75,000. Or a retired banker offered
one of his kidneys to a dialysis patient--for a price.
These scenarios--call them taboo trade-offs--sound morally
reprehensible to most of us. But the reasons for our objections vary from
person to person. And differing political philosophies is part of the
reason why.
When investigators at the University of California at Berkeley
asked students to choose the more objectionable of two taboo
trade-offs--one involving adults of equal economic status, the other
between folks whose incomes weren't so well --matched--liberals were far
more upset by the latter.
Liberals worry that when the rich buy a baby or kidney from the
poor, it amounts to exploitation. Their fear: the impoverished will make
"deals of desperation," coerced by economic circumstance into giving up
what no one should have to part with, explains Berkeley's Jennifer
Lerner.
Conservatives, however, take less exception to such transactions.
In the case of a poor parent giving up a baby, "it may be that
conservatives find the sale less offensive, because they believe the baby
will have a better life being raised by a wealthy person," says Lerner,
who coauthored the study with Daniel Newman and Philip Tetlock,
Ph.D.
Conservatives, however, have little sympathy for sellers who are
well-off. They may refrain from condemning the disadvantaged for parting
with sacred goods, but don't extend the same forgiveness to those who, in
the absence of dire economic circumstances, still choose to give up
babies or organs.
Whatever our reasons for scorning these deals, we probably won't be
assigning dollar values to organs any time soon. Ironically, our
reluctance to do so may be hurting those who have the biggest stake in
the is-sue--transplant recipients. Although humans need only one kidney
to survive, the country faces a severe lack of donors.
"If there were a financial incentive to sell kidneys, this shortage
might be eliminated," suggests Lerner. Though no advocated herself of
hawking organs to the highest bidder, she finds it interesting that no
official market exists. "People are so offended by the prospect of
putting a price on an organ that we don't save lives when we could." For
precious items like these, it appears the price may never be
right.
PHOTO (COLOR): Not for sale: kids and kidneys.
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