Repo-Men (2010) - would artificial organs help or hurt?

[corrector]

Just re-watched this movie Repo Men (2010) which deals with a story of people who repossess people's artificial organs which are past due over 90 days and in the process end up killing them. Without going into too much detail about this movie, I did get an idea that such a system, while it sounds terrible, would actually be a good idea for a number of reasons:

1) People who are going to die anyway because they don't have an organ donner and their organs are failing can at least extend their lives by at least three months (if they can't afford the monthly payments) or more (if they are able to afford it) by having an artificial organ.

2) It eliminates the organ black market. Children and Young adults disappear every day in America and around the world. This is because rich people are stealing their organs in an elaborate black market system where the police are in collusion which is why there are so many unsolved missing people cases. Artificial organs eliminates this problem as rich people no longer have to prey on poor and marginalized people to steal their organs or cheat them out of their organs, etc...

Now, the repo aspect of unpaid bills is a nasty one. The arguments are repos are always nasty. The bank can take away the house if you don't pay the mortgage. The bank can take the car if you stop payments. The organ company can take your organs if you default on the payments?

Let me put this another way: would you prefer the status quo as to how it is now, with such a black organ market existing or people dying because they can't find a donner? Or would a world where a black market for organs does not exist, or noone has to wait on a donner with a nasty catch being that in order for such a company to remain viable, they repossess people's organs who fail on their debts even if it means killing them? This actually becomes a difficult question if you strict it to Option A, and Option B. No you can say, you should have laws in place so that a company can't do that. Another thought is the fact that an idea of repossessing organs for people who default on their organ-debts is so reprehensible, would it be a factor that companies won't touch making artificial organs with a 10 foot-pole because of potential bio-ethical and capitalist fall-out issues that could arise like that?

 

[eli77]

what countries are doing this now?

 

[corrector]

what countries are doing this now?

You mean Black market stuff. It could be all over the place for all we know. Its usually dirt poor third world countries where they have slums and people turn a blind eye to these type of things. But, the conspiracy theorist in me would say it also happens in first world countries right under people's noses when kids who go missing are not recovered.

However, what about the point of the thread? Does repossessing people's organs who can't pay their organ debt-loans a lesser evil of an illegal organ black market existing if all organs could be replaced with artificial organs.

 

[corrector]

I used to look at the characters re-possessing people's organs in this movie with utter contempt. Like they were the scum of the earth. Like how can they do that to another human being? That's until I realized that some of the real evils that happen with organ theft are so egregious on its own right that, if that was somehow eliminated, they wouldn't seem so bad. After all, one can say they were going to die anyway without the artificial organs so they at least extended their life up the point they were no longer able to afford the monthly payments? I see this creates an ethnical dilemma that has most people stumped. With me this analysis undermines the movie.

 

[eli77]