Penny Lane: Why I Gave a Kidney to a Total Stranger

The Confessions of a Good Samaritan filmmaker explores the dysfunctional world of organ transplants.

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Penny Lane: Why I Gave a Kidney to a Total Stranger

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Today's guest is Penny Lane, the acclaimed documentary filmmaker whose previous works include Listening to Kenny G and Hail Satan?, both of which formed the basis of previous Reason interviews linked in the show notes.

Her exceptional new film is Confessions of a Good Samaritan. It's currently streaming on Netflix and follows her experience as an "altruistic" kidney donor, or one who gives an organ away to an anonymous stranger. Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Lane about how she came to make her decision; its effects on her body, mind, and finances; and the ethics of current policy, which prevents donors from being paid for giving away life-saving organs. "My instinct as more or less a libertarian is, yeah, pay people," Lane tells Reason. "It seems like a really obvious thing." But it's not a simple one, she explains, both because of current laws and medical history. They also talk about the state of documentary film making, if we're in a golden age for the genre, and whether audiences are becoming smarter consumers of media.

Previous appearances:

"Penny Lane: Can 75 Million Kenny G Fans Be Wrong?" December 1, 2021

"Hail Satan? A New Documentary Depicts Devil Worshipers as Unlikely Defenders of the First Amendment," April 26, 2019

 

00:00- Introduction

2:19- Penny Lane's altruistic kidney donation

4:21- Effective altruism's influence on Lane

6:12- Lane's obstacles before surgery

7:13- Recovering from surgery physically & psychologically

11:25- Parable of the Good Samaritan

15:43- Kidney donation policy

19:34- How financial incentives would change the equation

21:03- History of kidney transplants

24:17- Could man-made organ transplants be common soon?

28:49- 'Disgust' around selling organs

32:23- Starring in your own documentary

38:12- Are audiences more media literate now?

40:33- Lane's history with documentary filmmaking

41:46- Lane's documentarian heroes

48:06- Lane's current projects

• Video Editor: César Báez
• Audio Production: Ian Keyser

Comments

[Don't look at me!]

Crazy talk.

[Use the Schwartz]

Penny Lane, is in my ears and in my eyes...

[CE]

There beneath the blue suburban skies...

[AT]

For attention, and a platform on which to virtue signal. Got it.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

I wonder if a Libertarian publication would support open markets for human organs.

[Will Nonya]

Any one asking whether "audiences are becoming smarter consumers of media" after the last election is an imbecile.

[JeremyR]

Real answer: To make a movie about it

[docduracoat]

India is allowing people to sell heir organs
so of course, poor people are selling their kidneys.
for amounts we would consider trivial.
The system is morally suspect.
The Chinese are selling organs they take from executions.
They will even round up and execute a Uigher with the correct HLA genotype you need.
That system is morally bankrupt.
Americans should at least get the medical expenses of donation paid for

[middlefinger]

Canada, euthanasia program?

[Set Us Up The Chipper]

No way am I gonna donate a kidney to someone not in my immediate genetic tree.

[nobody 2]

The real questions here are "did her parents hate her," and if not, "what's her real name."