 According to Peter Singer, writing in "The New York Times", Kravinsky justified the donation mathematically when speaking to Singer's students, noting that the chances of dying as a result of the procedure would have been about 1 in 4,000.Kravinsky believed that, under the circumstances, "to withhold a kidney from someone who would otherwise die means valuing one’s own life at 4,000 times that of a stranger", a ratio he termed "obscene.