Free Speech in Advertising?
April 10th, 2007 by Bob Bly
Gail Tomas, a 65-year-old opera singer, saved her life through advertising.
According to an article in The Week (4/13/07, p. 16), Ms. Tomas ran a “kidney needed” notice on an organ donor Web site.
Paul Wagner, a 40-year-old businessman, responded — giving Gail one of his kidneys and saving her life.
Now, Dr. Douglas Hanto, a transplant surgeon, thinks advertising for a donor online should be made illegal.
His argument: people who get organs through online advertising are jumping the line on the national organ donor list.
The article notes that of the 70,000 people needing a kidney transplant in the United States, half will die waiting, because organs are in short supply.
Do you think advertising for a kidney … or a heart … or a child to adopt … or any other important essential should be banned?
Or if you needed these things, would you conduct an aggressive marketing campaign to secure what you require — either for you or a loved one?
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 1:15 pm and is filed under Advertising, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 11th, 2007 at 3:28 am
If it was my life - or a loved one’s life at stake
I would have done what I could. Even advertise!
However, I see the problems it may cause…
Poor people would not be able to advertise because
it costs too much, and as you say, this is jumping
the line.
Erlend (Norway)
April 11th, 2007 at 11:03 am
There is an old story about a man who is faced with the option of breaking the law to save his wife’s life. Should he steal the medicine he can’t afford or follow the rules and watch her die? Turns out this is a question about personal development on a values scale. ( See Clare W Graves). Serving the higher interest of life itself, over mere rules, the higher developed gets the medicine. The middle level follows the rules, the lower level defiantly serves self and steals as well. Interesting.
April 11th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Kyle: I didn’t see it, but there was a movie called John Q. with Denzel Washington as a dad who holds an entire hospital hostage, at gun point, to force them to treat his young son, whose health care he cannot afford because he is not insured.
April 11th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Bob- I saw part of that movie. The idea of demanding attention and action despite the consequences makes a thought provoking story.
Regarding advertising constrictions on issues like this, I think there do need to be guidelines and defining advertising principles. These will naturally emerge with the social levels that needs them.
One of the big problems comes with those who simply have zero regard for long term consequences. That translates to ‘bad guy’ opportunists. Tobacco, underage drinking, hidden food ingredients… stolen body parts, I am not sure if a ban on advertising is the answer but an awareness certainly helps.
April 12th, 2007 at 7:23 am
In a related vein, there was a report last week about a doctor, or healthcare advocate, who called for allowing people to sell their own organs (kidneys, etc) to cut down on waiting time for transplant patients.
I’d like to hear some realistic pros and cons, but I lean toward allowing that.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:35 am
In a free market society, of course you should be able to. The concern is that the rich will benefit at the expense of the poor — which, unfortunately, is already the case in our health care system. Several good science fiction novels have been written on this organ donor topic, especially James Gunn’s This Immortal.
May 14th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
I’ve worked in hospital finance long time and can confirm that transplant costs of 1/2 million or more are not uncommon.
So concern that the rich will win out over the poor is really hollow because
many whom you think are rich still couldn’t afford it.
But the richer could afford better marketing so that could be a concern however non profits, many of whom have great marketing skills, could become the marketing agents for specific donors that can’t afford marketing.
But the best solution is to have better marketing that increases more organ donors in general. This will give eveyone on the list better odds of finding a match.
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