The craziness and the restrictions on freedom in this country of mine, although I love Slovenia, are seemingly endless.
In only a few hours, the media called for and at the same time moralized on, the 60-year-old from Prekmurje, who published an ad to sell his kidney for 50,000 euros. To repay debts, repair the roof of the house, buy wood before the coming winter and feed the children. The man, in full consciousness, judged and freely decided to sell the kidney to someone that needed it and was willing to pay for it. The media, of course, started a commotion, calling it illicit trafficking in human organs and sending law enforcement to the man’s house. This was reported by the national television’s web-portal: “In this case, police officers want to prevent a crime. This crime would be committed by the doctor that would operate in such a case and by the organ trafficker. However, it would not be committed by the one who sells his body-part, explained to the police. TV Slovenia reported that the case was also checked by police officers, especially in order to prevent any kind of action and to offer some kind of help to the family. The man is not persecuted by law enforcement. The publication of the ad alone is not yet punishable”.
It is perfectly understandable that the man will not be persecuted. I hope that there is so much intelligence left in this country that it is clear that the man himself decides what to do with his own body. If he wants to sell his own organ, nobody can prevent it. It concerns his own body, which is his property and neither the state nor anyone else should interfere with it. Blood donors also give blood, that is, a part of their body. No one is persecuting the one who took the blood, nor the one who transmits the blood. In Austria and Italy, you get full payment for your blood, while in Slovenia you get a Carniolan sausage with a piece of bread and a day off work, that is, a payment. Then why is this a problem with a kidney? Would it be any different if a man went to the hospital and said that he gave the kidney to someone who needed it? The doctor would cut it out and the hospital would then forward it. If this would be a self-paying patient, he would have to pay for this operation. Why criminalize a doctor and a mediator if the entire process is voluntary? So, the donor, the doctor and the mediator would enter a voluntary relationship, there would be no compulsion. The state now somehow interferes, sending police, which means its repressive authorities. Totally unnecessary. A man is selling a kidney (his own, not anyone else’s, make no mistake) and it is his right to do with it whatever he wants. If he wants to sell it, that is all right, if he wants to donate, that too is all right. We can buy a wig made from human hair, creams that contain human embryos. Yet we cannot sell our kidney or buy one, although it is all voluntary.
The brave man from Prekmurje was obviously too proud to ask for and receive social assistance. He did not want to be a burden to the state or the taxpayers. If the state and the police were to persecute all those who exploit various forms of state and social assistance with equal vigil, they would not even have to deal with such cases, because the temporary assistance would be received by those who truly need it in the first place. According to media reports, the well-known Roma family Strojan, whose members are mostly not looking for work at all receives more than 150,000 euros a year from social assistance. There is a similar situation in other countries.
Just look at the hypocrisy in this country. Abortion is completely legal in this country, it is permitted, it is a kind of human (woman’s) right, while selling your organ by free-will is not. However, the doctor who carries out the abortion will not be persecuted, while the doctor who cuts the kidney, because such is the desire of the individual that wants to sell it, will be.
Anyone and at any time, whatever the circumstances, can sell their organs if they decide on their own and do it voluntarily. The state has absolutely no power to engage in such a decision. Each one is the owner of one’s own body and has the inalienable right to do with it what one wants if one does not endanger others and their property. Because, if an individual is not the owner of oneself, then who is?