BLOODLINES . Making Precedent . Is your body your own?

Your final case arguments: Read on and rule again

Your wife has a host of patients who may someday need organ transplants, and researchers think cross-species technology (xenotransplantation) is a very promising source of organs. Organs (hearts, kidneys and lungs) from pigs—many of which have been genetically modified with human genes—are already being tested in primates.

Estimates suggest that more than 60,000 people who would benefit from a transplant die each year waiting for organs. Considering that there are about three organs for every 10 patients in need of an organ for transplant, an unlimited supply of organs—even part-human pig organs—appeals to you and your wife. You are somewhat troubled by the knowledge that animals with human genes will be grown solely for the purpose of "harvesting" their organs. But you also know that while it is illegal to buy or sell human organs in the U.S., organ black markets exist in other countries due to organ scarcity.

How do you weigh the clearly established need for organs and the existence of a black market in human parts with the largely unknown risks and costs of xenotransplantation?


Yes		No

	Yes, and I changed my mind		No, and I changed my mind
	Yes, and I did not change my mind		No, and I did not change my mind


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Case

Recognizing the potential for harm in a marketplace of organs, the U.S. Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act of 1991, which banned the purchase or sale of human organs for transplantation. The act makes a strong legal statement against the idea of seeing property rights in human bodies.

Context

While the U.S. legal system grapples with the complexities of defining property rights with respect to the body, continuing technological advancement increases the ways we can utilize human body parts. In the meantime, society is left with a system in which body parts have an increasing value but an uncertain legal status. Legal experts note inconsistencies in the "general rule" that body parts and products are not property when it comes to things like human blood and semen, and now eggs. Both blood and semen are commonly "sold" at banks, but as one expert notes, "The law reconciles this by classifying such transactions as the provision of a service rather than the sale of a product."

Look Deeper

Some experts argue that having a property interest in one's body—owning it, so to speak—would give the individual greater control over what happens to it. One of the dangers of this view, however, is that it may open the door to selling such an interest, as in the trade for organs, and to other people "owning" one's body as was the case in slavery.





	The chronic shortage of organs worldwide has created a black market for body parts, particularly kidneys, which go for as little as $1,000 in Iraq and India. Reports cite cases in which donors are paid and doctors sometimes act as brokers, or in which people cross borders to sign up for organ donation or transplants without the provision for critical follow-up care. Serious human-rights violations related to the black market include reports of trading "a kidney for a dowry" in India when poor families want to arrange marriages, and government-sanctioned removal of organs from executed prisoners in China.


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