The Case for Legal Organ Sales

[Clark]

http://reason.com/archives/2011/11/11/the-case-for-legal-organ-sales

The Case for Legal Organ Sales
How legalizing the trafficking of human organs would save lives and protect the poor
Abby Wisse Schachter

Last month, 60-year-old Levy Rosenbaum pled guilty to trafficking in human organs, collecting more than $400,000 for arranging the sale of three kidneys. He faces up to 20 years in prison and is the first person in the U.S. to be convicted of organ trafficking.

As the prosecutor in the case, New Jersey's U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, declared triumphantly: "A black market in human organs is not only a grave threat to public health, it reserves lifesaving treatment for those who can best afford it at the expense of those who cannot. We will not tolerate such an affront to human dignity."

But before you condemn Rosenbaum completely, think about this: There are three people out there, who before they paid Rosenbaum to get them new kidneys, were sick and dying. Now those same people are healthy and well. Indeed, standing before U.S. District Judge Anne Thompson, Rosenbaum didn’t sound like a bad guy at all, he sounded like a savior. “The son told me the father has kidney failure,” Rosenbaum explained. “I helped him.”

As kidney-donor Virginia Postrel sees it the Rosenbaum case is predictable. “This is exactly the situation the law was designed to prevent: a broker soliciting people to sell their kidneys. It's also exactly the situation the law creates: a broker getting a huge markup as a premium for breaking the law, rather than letting the donors receive an above-board price set by hospitals or insurers.” Harvard Economist Jeffrey Miron agrees: “The law prevents a practice that benefits both the donors and the recipients, so it creates a large temptation to break the law.”

But are Postrel and Miron actually suggesting that you could solve the black-market in kidneys if you just legalized sales, with prices determined by the market? Indeed they are; they aren’t alone, and with good reason.

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[Clark]

http://triblive.com/opinion/featuredcommentary/6023212-74/kidneys-transplant-kidney

Here's how to end the black market in kidneys
By Abby W. Schachter

This country is in the midst of a kidney crisis. Supply is not keeping up with demand. The costs of maintaining the sick on dialysis while they wait for transplants is exorbitant. And where there is supply, there are perverse incentives lowering the number of kidneys that actually make it to those in need.

There is a good solution to the problem — legal organ sales. But we seem unable to muster the courage to recognize that solution and change the law.

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