India Uncut
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Saturday, September 10, 2005
Whose kidney is it anyway?
From this interesting story, I find out something that rather startles me: we do not own our kidneys, the state does. The story reports that "[a] Muslim woman who received a kidney from a Gujarati Hindu donor ... decided to express her gratitude by turning vegetarian." All very touching, but as I read along, I discover that the family of the donor -- who was comatose and beyond recovery -- would have preferred that the kidney go to his cousin, who needed it as much as the stranger who eventually got it. But some government body with the Orwellian name of Zonal Transplantation Coordination Committee (ZTCC) regulates these matters, and they don't allow individual donors, or their families, to decide where their kidneys should go.
Now, there would rightly be a hue and cry if some government body took over the dying man's house and car and, instead of allowing him to give them to people of his choice or to his family, forced him to give them to people on a waiting list for houses or cars. Why, then, should a kidney be any different?
Now, there would rightly be a hue and cry if some government body took over the dying man's house and car and, instead of allowing him to give them to people of his choice or to his family, forced him to give them to people on a waiting list for houses or cars. Why, then, should a kidney be any different?
