The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : Promote altruism, not trading

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 20, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Promote altruism, not trading

While the Supreme Court's order banning payment to blood donors has gone a long way towards cleansing the blood banking system, the "National Guidelines for Accreditation, Supervision & Regulation of ART clinics in India," a report prepared by the Indian Council for Medical Research and submitted to Parliament recently, turns its back on altruism and its huge role and potential in India. By stating that banks may compensate semen and egg donors financially, the ICMR has, in one stroke, labelled semen and eggs as tradable commodities. Such a provision will have no parallel in India; the double standards advocated are appalling, particularly as the Government in the recent past has gone to great lengths in cleansing blood banking of paid `donations'. It is another matter that organ commerce, supposedly proscribed by law and by medical and social ethics, is rampant in many parts of India, especially in the case of kidneys. This is because the banning law has built-in escape clauses; the medical profession and the private hospital sector have a critical mass of delinquents who enable and actively promote organ commerce; the regulatory authorities turn a blind eye to the racket; and there is mass deprivation and poverty to be exploited.

If the malevolence and appalling human costs of buying and selling blood and kidneys are well known, it is inconceivable that paid semen and egg donations will be free from these ills. An acute shortage of semen and eggs cannot be a justification for resorting to paid donations, because no earnest attempt was made, in the first place, to popularise the altruism of voluntary donation. In this context, the altruistic values inculcated by religions such as Buddhism and Jainism, which fervently and progressively call for acts of voluntary giving and sacrifice, can be absorbed by policy-makers. Advocating resort to paid semen and egg donations is a reflection of the ICMR's shocking insensitivity and unwillingness to get on to the altruism track. Those who shape and settle policy on such vital medico-social issues would do well to study Richard M. Titmuss' 1970 classic, The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy, which is available in an updated edition with new chapters (1997, LSE Books, London). Analysing inequalities in health and welfare from the perspective of human values and centre-staging altruism as an instrument of creating social cohesion and social wealth, this path-breaking book demonstrates that voluntary, unpaid blood-giving is safer and economically more efficient than a system based on payment to `donors'. In unedifying contrast to the practice in the United Kingdom and some other countries, egg donation is big business in the United States where a donor earns as much as $25,000. (The market rate in India seems to hover around Rs.25,000) With such a hefty price tag for eggs, the exploitation of women from socio-economically vulnerable backgrounds can be guaranteed if the ICMR's proposal goes through.

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