Should non-lethal organ sales be allowed?

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Inspired by this story:

Top transplant surgeons are collaborating with criminal organ trafficking networks to target the desperate, an expert said yesterday.

"It involves people from the highest level of their profession," said Nancy Scheper-Hughes, founding director of Organs Watch, an academic research project at the University of California, Berkeley.

Some surgeons are "willing to collaborate with the lowest levels of society - with criminal networks, brokers and with kidney hunters, who are the absolutely necessary factor," she said.

Professor Scheper-Hughes, a professor who is also the director of the university's medical anthropology program, was speaking at the Vienna Forum to Fight Human Trafficking.

Organs Watch, which has a presence in 10 countries with anthropologists, human rights activists and doctors who volunteer, some of them anonymously, she said.

Illegal organ transplants made headlines recently when a man in India was accused of being the leader of a syndicate that is alleged to have illegally removed hundreds of kidneys, sometimes from poor labourers held at gunpoint.

Indian police have said he headed an illegal organ transplant ring based in the upscale New Delhi suburb of Gurgaon.

Authorities believe his group sold up to 500 kidneys to clients who travelled to India from around the world in the past nine years.

"We don't really know how many people are trafficked for organs," Professor Scheper-Hughes said, adding that a conservative estimate for the number of trafficked kidneys was 15,000 each year.

Professor Scheper-Hughes said there were "strong cases" documenting coercion in Eastern Europe, Turkey, Israel, India and the United States.

"Most victims of kidney trafficking are coerced by need, not by physical force," she said, giving an example from Brazil where people were competing to be chosen, stuffing $US10 bills into the pocket of a so-called broker.

"It's driven by desperation," she said.

Trafficking doesn't have to be transnational and can also be found within countries, Professor Scheper-Hughes said.

A December 2007 World Health Organisation bulletin included a paper that noted that the shortage of an indigenous supply of organs has led to the development of the international organ trade.

"Despite growing awareness of the issue, the reality of the international organ trade is not well understood due to a paucity of data and also a lack of effort to integrate the available information," said the paper, written by Yosuke Shimazono.

The Vienna Forum, which ends today, is being convened by the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking.

What's wrong with people selling e.g. 1 kidney to someone else?

 

[Newbunkle]

There's nothing wrong with it at all.

 

[ummmm........]

Acknowledging that there are people who need money more than they need one of their kidneys makes rich people uncomfortable. So it should be illegal :yes:

EDIT: :eh: How do you people not have a :yes: smiley. And before I even check, I just know :eh: isn't showing up . . .

 

[Cu Chulainn]

The problem arises in the buying of said organs. If you need an organ you should not be able to buy one as that would result in rich people being able to corner the market. Life and death matters should depend as little as possible on the size of one's pocketbook.

 

[obliterate]

Acknowledging that there are people who need money more than they need one of their kidneys makes rich people uncomfortable. So it should be illegal :yes:

EDIT: :eh: How do you people not have a :yes: smiley. And before I even check, I just know :eh: isn't showing up . . .

You mean like: or

 

[zxcvbnm]

What's the problem, as long as the operations are safe and the people get paid enough?

 

[Ayatollah So]

Well, there's a false advertising problem (kidney donors are lied to about the risks) - but that might be worse when it's illegal than when it's legal. Then there's the moral hazards, like, this might give some rich people an incentive to make sure there's always a sizable pool of desperately poor people.

Hmm. All told, to legalize & regulate might be better than just to ban.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

What do you do if you're poor and need an organ? Are you just SOL?

 

[IglooDame]

What do you do if you're poor and need an organ? Are you just SOL?

Perhaps your medical insurance will cover the costs of one?

 

[emzie]

Perhaps your medical insurance will cover the costs of one?

So if you're poor, you're SOL.

 

[Elrohir]

What about corneas? You only need one eye to see, right? How about large amounts of skin? You're poor, you don't need to be pretty.

I see your point, but the idea of the rich simply buying the parts they need to make their bodies how they want them strikes me as extremely creepy. Granted, the law doesn't exist to stop creepy stuff from happening. But still....

 

[mrt144]

The problem arises in the buying of said organs. If you need an organ you should not be able to buy one as that would result in rich people being able to corner the market. Life and death matters should depend as little as possible on the size of one's pocketbook.

as it is now though, the list is already skewed to favor those that are famous and rich.