IGM Give me my kidney!

Inter-galactic Memo

To: All potential organ-donors/recipients
Fr: W. Leavitt, Crypto-ethicist
Re: common courtesy
1-9-09, No. 067

A recent news story has me thinking. I purposely did not glean the details because the headline was enough to make me nauseous.
It seems (as you might have read) that a man selflessly donated one of his kidney’s to his wife after two previous attempts failed. So far this is a wonderful and poignant story of everlasting love and devotion. Now, however, while in the muck and mire of an acrimonious divorce, the man (a doctor, I believe) is demanding his kidney back. This may be a first. Even if it’s not, it is certainly a new low.
The important question is not whether or not he should be asking for an organ back—he shouldn’t. It is why and how an adult human being, educated, experienced, and supposedly intelligent, cannot think their way to what should be an obvious conclusion.
Let’s assume that he is hurting and angry, and in the right—his awful, manipulating, haranguing, money-spending, sex-denying wife is solely responsible for his misery and their divorce. Hypothetically. In what mind-twisted, self-absorbed, irrational, hate-filled world is it acceptable to demand an implanted organ back?
Now, because of this idiot, someone (can you say “Congress”?) will be forced to enact legislation laying out new rules for organ donation, i.e., once implanted in someone else, the organ belongs to the new recipient and it becomes a matter of finders-keepers. No Indian-Givers in the world of organ exchange. (While the author is aware of the sensitive nature and politically-incorrect usage of the term “Indian-Giver”, using it seemed appropriate in this case, and is not intended as a negative comment on the lending practices of Native Americans).
This episode is a perfect example of what I like to refer to as “legislation through litigation”, in which frivolous lawsuits, sans content, inevitably lead to another “thou shalt not” law.
Years ago, all the schools in the district used chain nets on outdoor rims for basketball. The chains were heavy and did not foul in the wind, and lasted forever. District rules of course prohibited hanging on the rim, jumping up and grabbing the chain-net, or otherwise abusing the “net”. One weekend some kid, while messing around and showing off, (here at Chap, as it turns out) jumped up to touch the rim, caught his hand in the net—in other words being a typical teen-ager—and ripped a finger to shreds coming down. A quick lawsuit later and all the chain-nets in the entire county came down. (Shooting at only a rim is much less effective.) I’m sure we all remember the woman who burned herself on McDonalds coffee and sued for several million dollars. Or the man who sued the dry-cleaner for over a million dollars because his pants were ruined. (He recently lost, by the way).
In each case, these people should have been able to process their situation and conclude that legal action was inappropriate, since they were either at fault, or whatever occurred did not rise to the level of official legal action, or even a mild tantrum. Now Congress will no doubt pass a law delineating what can and cannot be done after an organ implant. All because of one guy’s childish, irrational, decision.
If anyone wonders why we have all these laws cinching us tighter and tighter into straight-jackets of behavior, this is the reason. Lawmakers are forced to react to the lowest behavior imaginable, usually in isolated cases. The better able we are, as individuals, to police ourselves and make rational, common sense-decisions based on some kind of value-system, the fewer laws and rules are necessary. We see this process in microcosm here at school, where “one bad apple” consistently ruins the experience for the rest of the kids.
The proper response to the man who wants his kidney back, is to slap him in the face, throw a glass of cold water at him, and remind him that he is an adult, not a child, and that kind of petulant, self-serving narcissism will not be tolerated. Then send him to the corner for a time-out.