this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago (9 children)

I donated a kidney to a friend earlier this year. The reason his kidneys failed wasn't anything he was at fault for, but even if it had been because of poor decisions he'd made in the past, I still would have given him one of mine. Because people deserve second chances. I can understand not wanting to give a recovering alcoholic a deceased donor's liver, when someone else could receive that liver, instead. But this woman's partner was a match and was willing to donate to her. What's the harm in that? That isn't a liver that could have gone to someone else who needed it. It's a donation that would have either gone to her or no one else. No one could have lost out of the donation had been carried out. This was just cruelty, and now someone is dead. And for what? Because there's a 15% chance (according to studies the article mentioned) that she might have started drinking again???

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It's not super clear, but the article makes it sound like if a partial graft from a live donor fails, then the recipient is automatically fast tracked for a new transplant from a deceased donor.

If that's the case then maybe policy should be changed in the case of alcohol abuse.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The policy isn't there just to be extra nice, it's because otherwise the patient dies without a liver.

Since she was too sick for a partial liver transplant, and not eligible for a dead donor full liver transplant, she would have just died.

It might seem cruel but the same is done for a lot of other procedures; if the chance of you dying in surgery is way too high, doctors won't take the risk, they're not executioners.

It's not a moral judgement about her alcoholism, the same would have been true if she had a cancer no surgeon would take on.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

I totally understand the mortality aspect, I was just thinking if a patient is 100% going to die from liver failure without a transplant, any chance to live from a live donor seems worth it. Of course I don't know any statistics so I have nothing to base it on.

Maybe euthanasia should be a legal option instead of a slow agonizing death that puts next of kin into medical debt.

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