Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Fine, No Fine, Legal or not Legal, Make Up Your Mind!

About a year ago, a high profile case involving a rich man and him buying kidneys made big news.

Kidneys for sale: CK Tang chairman charged with 3 counts
(Source: AsiaOne)

Mr Tang Wee Sung was dying of kidney failure and in his desperation to live, bought a kidney from a willing donor via a broker. Needless to say, there were significant remuneration for the willing donor.

But in Singapore, at that moment in time, this was considered illegal and morally unethical.
At the end of the day, Tang, his broker and the willing donor got some fine and relatively short jail term.

The Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA) in Singapore states that organs can only be donated in event of death. All Singaporeans are automatically opted in by law unless they choose to opt out of the scheme during their living years.

By the court proving the 3 whom conspired to buy,sell,brokered the kidney of a living donor, Singapore has taken its stand to stamp out such activities and make an example out of these 3 and warn its people that such activities are not acceptable...

Until now..

Singapore is considering making changes to the HOTA and is even considering reimbursements payouts for willing living donors.

A Tough Moral Choice
(Source : Today Paper)

Knowing Singapore and considering its previous history on the issue of opening the Casino, only one thing can be said.The chinese character above is the word for "Official" or government official.
The word has 2 "
口" in it which is the chinese word for mouth.
There is a saying in chinese which says "
两个口" which means the word "official" has two "mouths".
The hidden meaning means, the government can say anything they want to.




Today is 25th March 2009
Time now is 10:31 hrs

I bet very soon, some government official or his/her family will be making use of this change to the HOTA.

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