Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 22:16:22 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Medical Ethics


Leo wrote:
>To start with, there is the basic issue of organ
>compatibility; that is why there is a national registery, because like blood
>type matches and related to it, some matches are very hard to make, and the
>widest possible net is needed to find compatible matches in a small number of
>cases.

I am aware of this. But this is a medical decision, not a moral one, unless
you think that compatibility is a moral issue.

>Beyond that, there are a limited number of medical centers capable of
>carrying out the transplant procedures, and there are several patients waiting
>for organs at them at any given point. There is no way around deciding which
>of those patients at a center should receive the compatible organ first.

This is not a moral factor either. That there are a limited number of
medical centers capable of transplant procedures seems to me to be a
political question.

>Such
>protocols take into consideration two of the factors, among others, which you
>mention -- the progress of disease in the patient and the chances of a
>transplant being successful.

Again, these seem to me to be medical interpretations + decisions.

>It should also be pointed out that by introducing even these
>two factors, implicit moral values are being invoked.

What are those moral values you speak of? Why are they implicit as opposed
to explicit? Why on earth do you want to make them explicit, supposing for
the sake of argument that they are indeed implicitly there.

Also, you may want to take a look at Russ's example of how explicit moral
judgment is used in the British health service.

Yoshie




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