There are some cold, cold people in this world….
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (Charlotte Observer) [1] When his wife needed a kidney transplant, Richard Batista gave her one of his, attorney Dominic Barbara said.
Now that Dawnell Batista has filed for a divorce, Richard Batista wants his kidney back as part of his settlement demand. Or, Barbara said Wednesday, his client wants the value of that kidney: an estimated $1.5 million.
Could he really do that? Well, I guess physically, there’s no issues for him… though his ex wife could very well die. See, as a donor, the ex husband was uniquely matched. And anyway…
Medical ethicists agreed that the case is a nonstarter. Asked how likely it would be for the doctor to either get his kidney back or get money for it, Arthur Caplan at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics, put it as “somewhere between impossible and completely impossible.”
First and foremost, said Robert Veatch, a medical ethicist at Georgetown University, “it’s illegal for an organ to be exchanged for anything of value.” Donating an organ is a gift – “when you give something, you can’t get it back,” he said.
You wonder what motivates some people.