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J Med Ethics 2005;31:180-181 doi:10.1136/jme.2004.010504
  • Global medical ethics

A response to J S Taylor

  1. S R Benatar
  1. Correspondence to:
 Professor S Benatar
 Department of Medicine, UCT, Observatory, Cape Town 7925, South Africa; sbenataructgsh1.uct.ac.za
  • Received 9 September 2004
  • Accepted 17 September 2004

I am very pleased to see the response by J S Taylor to my critique of the “organs debate”. He makes some notable and important points, but also some errors to which attention should be drawn.

Taylor erroneously attributes to me concern that the organ debate excessively focuses on saving the lives of a few people. My concern was about the narrow framework within which the debate is embedded and that it focuses on the lives of a few privileged people—those who can pay—while largely neglecting the lives of those who cannot. The fact that some attention has been paid to such issues in some journals does not negate the importance of my claim. Moreover, it is not that the question of millions of premature deaths has …

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