Human organ trade - ...and so it begins...

It was easy to contemplate reimbursing kidney donors. It just made sense to do so. Just as it did legitimizing the process.

Now when the discussion and dialogues begin it is starting to look pretty scary.

Minister Khaw Boon Wan was reported in today's Straits Times, as having said at the first HOTA dialogue session with some 300 grassroot leaders, that Singaporeans and foreigners should receive the same reimbursements. Far'nuff, I thought. Except that this is probably the first clear indication that we were clearly going to be purchasing organs from overseas, that we were not going to limit this reimbusement for organ donors thing to just a Singapore activity. Viva la Singapore Medical Hub!!

What was also worrying for me was the almost unanimous voice that supported the organ trade lobby. The reimbursements, far from originally proposed that it was only to cover costs of medical procedures and associated costs for time etc, would be in the tune of $50,000-$100,000.

Whoa....!

This was human organ trade getting into full swing. Let's not bother about those airy-fairy ideas of inducements and exploitation. If we need those organs, just go ahead and buy them off those poor sods for whom $100,000 would represent several lifetimes of income.

I hope that Minister Khaw will consider (and I trust he will because I believe he is at the core, a good and ethical person) that the opinios solicited at his dialogue do not represent the universe of opinions and are heavily biased towards the recipients position as many of those represented there will have friends, relatives and constituents who are potentially recipients of the donated kidney. There are no voices there that effectively represent the potential donors, and the populations from whom the potential donors will come from if the great kidney sale extends to the international community.