Welcome to part IV of a series of posts highlighting discussions of organ donation on the Taboo Trades podcast. So far, I’ve discussed Imminent Death Donation, The Political Economy of Organ Transplantation, Kidney To Share, and Kidneys and Challenge Trials.
Today, I want to highlight Kidneys, with Sally Satel. Dr. Satel is a two-time kidney transplant recipient and has written widely about that experience, as has her first donor, Virginia Postrel. As I mentioned in my last post in this series, Sally’s writing on this topic inspired Josh Morrison to donate his own kidney to a stranger some years later.
In this episode, Sally discusses that “tyranny of the gift” that so moved Josh, but I want to highlight this bit from my student co-host, Caitlyn Stollings (UVA Law '22), whose mother-in-law had recently received a kidney from a deceased donor:
[M]y mother-in-law recently received a kidney transplant. So your story actually really resonated with me . . . I know my mother-in-law felt the same sense of obligation that you described in your articles. She found her sense of obligation completely overwhelming, so much so that she actually ended up deciding to go with a deceased donor instead of continuing to look for a living donor. She actually asked both me and my husband, her son, not to get tested. Because she just didn't want to have a sense of obligation to us.
Listen to Kidneys with Sally Satel here, or in the embedded player below (or on apple, Spotify, and the other usual suspects).