Bizarre: UK Prof. Says Students Should Sell Their Kidneys…To Pay Off College Debt
- Posted on August 5, 2011 at 3:31pm by
Billy Hallowell
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Currently, the United Kingdom‘s Human Tissue Act makes it illegal to sell one’s organs or bodily tissues. But, Sue Rabbitt Roff, a prominent, American-born social scientist believes that this law should be stricken from the books.
According to Roff, people — particularly students — should be allowed to sell their kidneys so that they can pay off university debts. The academic, who teaches at the University of Dundee in Scotland, believes that such a move would enable students to collect tens of thousands of pounds (in fact, she even places a value on the kidney donation: £28,000 — nearly $46,000 in U.S. dollars).
(Click the image above to watch a video interview with Roff)
Aside from the monetary value, Roff says the move would help save lives. Her controversial comments were published on Thursday in an article she penned for the British Medical Journal. In an interview with The Scotsman, she reinforced her views, saying:
“We are allowing young people to undertake £20,000 to £30,000 of university fee payments.
We allow them to burden themselves with these debts. Why can’t we allow them to do a very kind and generous thing but also meet their own needs?”
She begins her article by setting the stage with these dramatic words:
At least three people died today in the United Kingdom because they couldn’t get a kidney transplant. Several thousand more will attend dialysis units. There are increasing numbers of patients, usually young, whose doctors would like to give them “pre-emptive” kidney transplants instead of starting dialysis, which is harsh on the patient and expensive for NHS resources. A transplanted kidney will “pay for itself” within 18 months.
At least one student group is discontented by her message. Scotland’s National Union of Students called the idea “ludicrous” and claimed that students shouldn’t be expected to sell a body part in order to subsidize their education.
This raises a variety of questions about how such a law, should it be implemented, would impact the lives of the poor in the U.K. Considering that people on the lower rungs of the economic strata are often operating out of desperation, it is possible that these individuals would be more apt to sell their organs. This, of course, poses some serious questions about the moral and ethical issues attached to such a proposal. As The Scotsman noted, experts have mirrored this sentiment:
Dr Calum MacKellar, director of research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, said the move would be exploitative.
“To place a financial value on human beings or parts of human beings undermines the inherent dignity of the human person and the innate as well as immeasurable worth of all individuals,” he said.
“A legal, regulated market in human body parts would end up exploiting those who have very restrictive financial means such as many students and foreigners.”
But, not everyone stands opposed. In an article on Forbes.com, Adam Smith Institute Fellow Tim Worstall writes (bizarrely, touting Iran for allowing its citizens to sell organs):
I of course support Dr. Roff: for I have a feeling that I might have been the person who planted the idea in the first place. Wearing my think tank wonk hat I suggested this last year. This was then picked up by one of the Scottish newspapers and used as a lead story*.
Whether I am the source or not it still sounds to me like a seriously good idea. The NHS would save money, transplants are cheaper than dialysis over the long term, and some 1,000 people a year would live longer lives rather than going through protracted and painful early deaths.
In the end, ones stance comes down to values on human dignity. It’s a bizarre debate, but one that apparently needs to be had.
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Comments (65)
Hephzibah
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:34pmWhy not sell both kidneys? Govt health care will pay for dialysis…well, at least until you are too old to be useful to them.
Report Post »MidWestMom
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 5:33pmI think she should sell one of her kidneys. She can set a good example & show the students just how it’s done.
Report Post »Servant Of YHVH
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 7:14pmActually hephzibah and midwest mom. I believe that what they should do is each student pick a body part of this idiot and they can each sell one of her body parts to pay for their education. Of course it would be like musical chairs because the one that picked her brain to sell would be left out in the cold because they can‘t sell if it she ain’t got it.
Report Post »avenger
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 7:47pmworks for me…
Report Post »Secret Squirrel
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 9:29pm.
Report Post »Selling your kidney makes more sense than asking me to pay for your education.
Cheetosareus
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:33pmThey could try an auction. They would have biders from all over the world who would run the price up so high they would never have to work again.
Report Post »Hephzibah
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:30pmShe advocates selling your bodily organs in order to pay for their socialist indoctrination…that’s pure evil.
Report Post »HKS
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:36pmThat would be one sick puppy, they must think they are god. That would explain their degrading of religion. “Just worship me, sell your body parts for me”. Must be the teachers union.
Report Post »Cheetosareus
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:28pmMaybe they could put a kidney up as collateral for their student loan..or mayby an eye or a lung…maybe a part they really don’t think they need. Of course it could get sticky when they come to reposse your stuff.
Report Post »ColoradoMaverick
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:26pmWhy not, we already sold their futures to pay for our entitlements.
Report Post »beverlee
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:52pmYou are not a maverick…you are lopsided gigglesprite.
Report Post »calamitykate
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:23pmSelling organs is legal within the united states, but you dont see American college students auctioning off their innards en masse for cash. Even if they did, and I am sure that a few have, what would it matter? (I hate that these typically pro-abortion word are going to leave my mouth.. err.. fingers, but) Their body – their choice!
Less government regulation is always a good thing.
Report Post »Old Truckers
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:28pmWe have two eyes, should we sell one of those?
Report Post »Two arms, do we need both?
kindling
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:22pmSue can donate her heart, her brain is usless.
Report Post »slvrserfr
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:22pm…or we could tell teachers unions to take a pay cut from their bloated salaries and tell the Department of Education to stop spending millions on lobbyists to pressure politicians to vote for their union’s special interests. A majority of that money does not go towards improving education, just the administration and faculty’s salary cap.
Report Post »Fly Old Glory 24/7 365
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 5:05pmhey now, enough of the common sense thing….
Report Post »Old Truckers
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:21pmWhy did God design us to have two kidneys?
Should we sell a gift that was given us?
Report Post »AIDANMAN
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:10pmthey would just jack up the cost of college OR make you donate before you attend….
so they get thier Pound of flesh upfront….
Report Post »why can‘t coed’s be allowed to provides “services” too..
Its for school…
calamitykate
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:26pmI was attending BSU when they won the bowl game against OU with the Statue of Liberty pass… the next semester, tuition nearly doubled. Why? Because they could! Educational establishments are perpetually seeking a motive to increase fees.
Report Post »freedomisasfreedomdoes
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:08pmA ‘transplanted kidney’ will pay for itself? Price on human life? wow.
Report Post »AvengerK
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:18pmMore of the detached, elitist, professor-in-a-bubble non-sense we see too much of. Much like Obama’s John Holdren suggesting he can use the constitution to mandate sterilization of American women or to kill off older Americans…to save the Earth. Here‘s a new professorial kook who’s reducing human beings to the status of traded goods. “Sure we can pay off your loan junior…that’ll cost a kidney and half a lung..hey..you’ll be doing a nice thing for someone else too…now hold still, you’ll feel something cold and then some pressure”.
Report Post »Psychosis
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:08pmIT WORKS LIKE THIS
this liberal elite jacks the price of education thru the roof, which causes students to enslave themselves to debt. they then offer these slaves a way out, buy selling a kidney, which would then be given to an elite, ensuring they live longer and continue to enslave the young through high prices and generational tax schemes
i say let the old elites die off ……………let the kids learn a trade that provides for themselves, but limits what the elites can steal from them . if this was to happen en mass, these elites would die on the vine for lack of funds they have embezzled off of the young and unknowing
end their bloodsucking ways !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Report Post »Wes Hardin
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:08pmOne day you might have to sell an arm and a leg to gas up your car.
At least the woman at Dunkin’ Donuts was selling a body part in which she retained ownership.
Report Post »inferno
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:08pmI have a suggestion, she should sell both of hers, and her brain as well. Oopps, sorry she doesn’t have one.
Report Post »13th Imam
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:06pmMost DEMOCRATS sell their brains for a sheepskin. or is it a lambskin.?
Report Post »banjarmon
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:04pmBO should sell both of his to help pay for the debt he has created.
Report Post »banjarmon
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:09pmIf Bo sell his Kidneys, He won’t be able to p e e on America.
If he sells his brain, He might get 2 cents!
Report Post »AmericanLass
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 3:58pmEducated Idiot, can’t see the difference between donating sperm & blood to donating a kidney. Brain rot has hit the UK.
Report Post »loriann12
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 3:57pmAt least she did what every good socialist in America should do….she moved to Europe.
Report Post »BOMUSTGO
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 3:53pmHow stupid! Some of us, like myself, were born with one kidney.Took 26 years to find out.They better check and see that you have two kidneys before they take one.
Report Post »Fly Old Glory 24/7 365
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 3:52pmonly in Kentucky, I swear…what? whats that you say? United Kingdom? Oh, never mind….
Report Post »moreteaplease
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 3:49pmAfter seeing some of the keggers that college students can throw, I don’t know if their kidneys would fetch all that much :P
Report Post »vennoye
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 3:47pmHate to see students sell body parts for a college degree, not be able to find jobs………then find out that plumbers are employed and making more money!! :-)
Report Post »Ducky 1
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 3:44pmI think this is sick. What could be optional may some day be mandatory!
Report Post »vtxphantom
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 4:03pmFor an option, how about the professor donate his knowledge and time, so the students don’t have to pay the high tuition costs. Free education for all.
Report Post »Ironmaan
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 3:42pmThis woman is a horror show of stupidity. Look what these poeple turn into after having been in academia their entire lives and never having to produce anything of value. They live in a fantasy land where they can spew any silly thought they have.
Report Post »http://guerillatics.com
AlansTigg
Posted on August 5, 2011 at 3:39pmI say it’s your body, sell your organs if you want to
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