From Al Roth‘s blog, the pope’s recent comments on organ donation.
Either the pope didn’t read our column on organ donation, or we failed to change his mind on the issue.
The Pope Doesn't Agree With Us on Organ Donation
TAGS: Organ Donation, religion
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Well, someone here is fallible.
You failed to change his mind – there’s no way that one can have a COMPLETELY free market with respect to organs.
Also, the Pope is coming from a background that values human dignity over economics.
I came in with the presupposition that he DID read your paper; we can all see why he might not have the time.
Well, in my experience, somebody religious enough to become pope may not be the clearest thinker the world has ever known. You can’t expect to appeal to his logic and reason, because he doesn’t have much of it.
@ #2 – Right, because figuring out a way to save more lives isn’t dignified.
Organs and sex: legal to give away, illegal to sell.
Erin, thanks for the demonstration of your logic and reason. I was under the impression that I was at the Freakanomics blog, not Pharyngula.
Erin, on the contrary, the mental acrobatics required to reconcile Catholic theology with the real world are really pretty astounding.
According to the blog post, the pope said that “the adoption of discriminatory or utilitarian criteria… is morally unacceptable.” What? Utilitarianism is founded on the principles of individual choice and freedoms (hence free market). How can consent and consensus on a decision made by two adults with (hypothetically) complete information transparency be considered immoral? If both people want to do it and it will not negatively affect any outside party, I do not understand how there can be any basis for restriction (although I am well aware how many precedents there are already that violate this line of thinking).
If anyone is the “moral police” I guess it would be the Pope, but I am always against restrictions in markets where there is no apparent pre-existing externality (besides, at the risk of sounding like a complete jerk, external parties’ “feelings”).
I’d think that some churches have organs donated to them and others pay for them. What’s the big deal?