Morality of organ donations

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I was thinking about this recently. Obviously there are few people who have a problem with people receiving organs from someone who has died naturally. However, I saw this philosophy problem on the bbc website and took it a step further.

The original problem was about when it might or might not be OK to kill/let die one person to save the lives of more than one person. For example, would it be morally OK to kill one healthy person who had no friends or relatives, in order to save the lives of 5 people needing organs who would die without them. I think most people say no in this case.

Then the problem went on to say that if you were a train driver and you saw ahead of you 5 people tied to the track and there was no way of stopping the train from killing them, apart from taking a diverting line which would then run over and kill a single person, would it be morally right to divert the train and hence save 4 lives. In this case most people choose to divert, but which (if any) is morally right, and why is this situation so different from the one above?

These types of questions are interesting in themselves, basically because it is impossible for us to calculate the value of a life, or of certain lives against others. However I was wondering this.

What if I (a healthy and fit 30 year old female) decided that I'd had enough of life and I wanted to die, but also to donate my organs, therefore saving 5 lives (of people who presumably want to live a lot more than I do). I wouldnt expect any money or anything for it, but for the organ transplants to work, I would have to die by a means and in a place where it was possible to immediately remove the organs and retransplant them (so I couldnt just commit suicide by any means in a private place). Would this extremely altruistic act be morally right?

I think most people would abhor the idea, but in the sense that each life is equally valuable, and taking into account the fact that I no longer want to live anyway, wouldnt this really be the morally right thing to do? (assuming that none of the transplant receivers or any offspring they have later go on to be mass murderers - this can never be ruled out, but is impossible to quantify).

I think in this society we place too much value on life for lifes sake and don't consider the quality of life enough. If I have considered that my life is useless - Im not going to reproduce, not going to do anything 'important', then isnt it right that other people who may be more important to humanity (or not, but at least they think their lives are worth living) can live instead of me? By the way, I am not suggesting that all suicidal people should be rounded up and killed in controlled conditions, but if this is what someone really wants, then shouldn't it be an option? What a waste if I end up killing myself another way and destroy all those lovely healthy organs.

Just wondering what people think (I am not saying that if it was an option I would do it anyway). By the way, assume that I have no relatives or friends (which isnt the actual truth, but it complicates things if there are).

I would sacrifice myself for 5 random strangers, however no one's touching my organs after I die. *shudders*

I too am concerned by this "life for life's sake" ideology that is prevalent in much of modern society.

"All life is sacred" - Sacred to whom?
"They might cure cancer someday" - The odds are about the same between making an important scientific discovery and become a mass murderer. Flip a coin.

If you first determine that morality and law is always created to ensure that what occurs is whats best for society as a whole then taking the path that causes the least number of deaths is almost always preferential (barring of course situations where you have one nobel peace prize winner and 5 convicted murderers). Contrary to political correctness human life does have a finite and measurable value when it comes to the probability of them making a significant contribution that improves the health, harmony or prosperity of the collective.

However if you take the path where actions are dictated by their contributions toward the long term survival of the species then taking out the most people possible would be best as we already have an ecologically unsustainable world population. Science may make it possible to feed and sustain a further exponentially increasing population but if it can't the only possible end result is humanity dropping dangerously close to extinct (if not all the way) and rendering the planet mostly uninhabitable.

Becoming a mass murderer would buy the survivors more time.

I'm not an organ donor

One potential problem with that is it is assumed none of the 5 people (who each need 1 organ transplant, implying that they are otherwise healthy) would donate their remaining organs in the event of their death. Thus, if each of those 5 people died, perhaps their healthy organs could save 4 lives apiece, thus saving a total of 20 lives without involving something as messy as involuntary organ harvesting.

I do not generally promote death, but my view is that it would be silly to waste anything, especially something that could save lives. If someone is going to die, then it makes sense to scavenge their body for functional parts that others may find useful. As to whether killing yourself in order to make your organs available to people who needed transplants is moral... well, it certainly is altruistic.


Strictly speaking, it is an option, just not legally. I am registered as an organ donor, and anyone can see that from my driver's license. If I wanted to do what you are suggesting, I could simply walk into a hospital, hand my driver's license to someone, and then shoot myself in the head (the brain isn't transplanted, so it doesn't matter if that gets damaged) and then the organs are there for the doctors to harvest. Of course, the difficulty there is that since it's not something the doctors prepared for, they would not have arranged for people in need of transplants (and compatible with the donor organs) to be prepped for surgery right then. If it's what someone really wants, then perhaps it should be an option to do it legally and in a prearranged manner, though you first have to get through the euthanasia debate.

And jump the technical hurdle of finding a way to kill yourself that is not violent, dangerous to others or damaging to the organs.

Chemical suicides damage the organs or at least make them unsuitable for transplant and violent ones with a weapon wouldn't be allowed due to risk to other patients (shoot yourself in the head and take the sick guy in bed upstairs with you when the bullet doesn't stop for example).

What does that really leave?

Suffocation is unreliable as you pass out long before you die (making you lose your grip on whatever your choking yourself with) and exanguination is messy (several liters of blood would be needed to be removed from your body to kill you).

Problem solved!

I support euthanasia. I think those in incurable physical pain who want to die should be allowed to. Though, I am not sure where I stand on harvesting the organs of the mentally unstable and suicidal, if that is indeed their only problem. Seems like maybe I should disagree...

I know a surgical tech that has participated in an organ harvesting. I hear it is quite the odd ordeal. They are dead, but not really because the machines are keeping them alive to maintain the viability of the organs. Sounds kind of freaky.

I think I once read about a prisoner protesting execution on the grounds of being an organ donor. I am not sure if they got out of it, but it makes sense due to there being no current method of execution which makes the organs able to be salvaged.

Last edited by claire-333 on 02 Dec 2008, 9:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Hanging would probably work, or any other method of snapping the neck. Bleeding out is a waste of valuable blood that could be transfused. If it were legal and pre-arranged, a general anesthesia would leave you unconscious and allow live organ harvesting that way, which would probably be easiest for the doctors.

I wouldn't kill myself to send off the organs, but I am classified as an organ donor (on my drivers license form I checked the organ donor box)...

I may not be worth anything to anyone in life, but at least in death I may finally have some value to someone...

I am not specifically registered as donor, but I have told my family that should i die before them I wish to not be a donor. It may sound a tiny bit cruel, but when I do have to die I would like to say farewell in a way that I personally like and not to have all somewhat useful parts removed first. I do have lot of respect for donors, but after many years of thinking about the subject I am still not in favor of being a donor myself.

A sick joke from a sick individual. ^^^

After I'm dead and gone, needy individuals are welcome to any bodily organs mine that can be of use. I do not plan on kiling myself to put them on the organ market, however. Would you be comfortable in receiving a heart or kidney from a suicide?

We should be able to grow replacement organs by now but the god freaks say its sinful for science to benefit mankind *shrugs*

The god freaks(?) say it is sinful to benefit mankind if the price is too high. Victor Frankenstein learned this lesson the hard way. If the price is too high, the benefit is cancelled out.

Bioethics ... bioethics.

if research was allowed from day one we'd probably be able to grow em using the patients own dna or tissue samples by now.