In life-and-death choices, separate the people who advise or judge from those who earn money when the choice goes ahead
In short
- People who decide on embryo gene tests, euthanasia, or animal experiments must not earn income from carrying them out.
- Hospitals and companies that carry out these acts stop paying the people who judge them directly.
- Instead, those who carry out the acts pay into a shared fund, and the fund pays the judges.
- Judges are assigned in turn, so those carrying out the acts cannot pick someone who suits them.
- Even if a judge decides "it is better not to do it," the judge's pay does not go down.
If this comes true
A couple getting fertility treatment asks a counselor sent from the fund about testing their embryos, understands that they do not need extra tests right now, and goes home without paying a high fee.
Perhaps
A man with a serious illness who wants to die might wait so long for an outside judge to become available that the time he wanted passes.
Water so far 💧 0
The proposal in detail
This covers situations about the start and end of life, and the use of living things, where nobody can move forward without someone else's judgment. Specifically, it includes gene testing and selection of embryos, taking part in treatments that rewrite genes, deciding whether euthanasia or physician-assisted death is allowed, approving animal experiments, and reviewing clinical trials on people. In these situations, the people who explain and advise the person involved, and the people who decide whether to allow the act, must not be employed by the hospital or company that carries it out. They also cannot receive pay per case, or a bonus when they approve. Those carrying out the act pay a fixed fee for each case into a public fund. The amount is the same no matter what the decision is. The fund registers qualified judges and counselors, assigns them to cases in turn, and pays them a steady fee based on how much work they do. Those carrying out the act cannot refuse an assignment or name a particular person. In reviews of animal experiments, more than half of the committee members are outsiders, and their pay also comes from the fund. People are free to talk with their own doctor or any expert they like. What is separated is the person who gives the signature needed to move the procedure forward. In emergencies involving life, where waiting would cause serious harm, the doctor on the spot decides, and a judge from the fund checks afterward. In areas with few experts, remote interviews are allowed, and neighboring areas may share judges.
BenefitsPeople who are unsure can hear from someone who is not selling
People facing a choice about life are usually in a weak position. They may be in physical pain, may long strongly for a child, or may be chased by a research deadline, and they have no choice but to rely on the expert in front of them. If that expert earns more the more they say "go ahead," the explanation slowly leans toward going ahead, even when the person means no harm. If judges' pay is cut off from the outcome, options like "let's not do it" and "let's wait for now" can be said without hesitation. This works the same way for euthanasia, gene selection, and animal experiments, and it is a shared foundation. Without piling up detailed rules for each separate topic, simply fixing the one point of who is making the judgment makes decisions in every field easier to trust. Also, when the position of the people who judge is clear, society finds it easier to accept the results. Even for people who strongly doubt euthanasia or embryo selection, being able to confirm at least that "it was not decided for money" becomes an important footing for continuing the conversation.
DrawbacksIt costs time and money, and people who can't wait or poor areas are left behind
A system that assigns judges from outside is bound to be slow. The number of registered experts is limited, and while people wait their turn, illness advances and the period in which embryos can be used passes. For someone suffering so much that they wish to die, a wait of several weeks is not just a delay in paperwork. Also, an outside judge knows the person's circumstances less well than a doctor who has treated the patient for a long time. One interview cannot always capture a person's life and values correctly, and the judgment may even end up shallower. On cost, the fees paid into the fund are in the end added to what patients pay for treatment or to research budgets. In poor areas that have few experts to begin with, securing independent judges is itself difficult, and if they try to keep the system, tests, treatments, and research themselves might become unavailable. As a result, people and research may flow to places with looser rules, and the very people who were meant to be protected could end up in even riskier situations. In exchange for gaining fairness, we give up speed, closeness, and easy access.
Learn the background
In organ transplants, the idea of keeping the doctor who declares a death separate from the doctor who transplants the organs was adopted early in many countries. It is plain common sense: the side that wants the organs must not be left to judge death. Yet this wisdom has hardly spread beyond transplants. It is not rare for a clinic that sells embryo gene tests to have counselors it employs do the explaining. In places where euthanasia is allowed, there are cases where the running costs of the organizations that carry it out depend on the number of cases. Committees that decide whether to allow animal experiments are often made up mainly of researchers from the same institution, reviewing the plans of their colleagues. In some cases, clinical trials are reviewed by bodies that receive money from the company requesting the trial. In every one of these situations, the livelihood of the person making the judgment is tied to the result of the judgment. The ones who suffer are patients and families caught in doubt and worry, animals that cannot speak, and children born as a result of selection. Technologies that touch life are spreading as products faster than systems to protect the position of those who judge can keep up.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
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This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-20b) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes