Cooke died March 30, 2004, of lung cancer that had spread to his bones. The next day, before his cremation, body snatchers surgically cut out his bones and sold them for more than $7,000 to two tissue processing companies for eventual transplant procedures.
If a body, (net of organs) is so valuable, even when the product will be deadly to the consumer and the transaction is fraught with the same sort of perils that attach to drug dealing, why don’t we let people sell the rights to their parts in advance (or at delivery, if need be)?
We see the invisible hand of the market at work here, on the black market side (kind of like superintendants who get “key money” for passing on rent-controlled apartments)–why not at least legitimize it and allow the financial reward to go to the person or heirs.
If nothing else , this could substitute for a fair chunk of life insurance. On an amortized basis, if you consider the implied income from the premium payment forbearance, one might be one’s own best asset.
(Talk about the ownership society…)
Why do we insist that people throw away their body parts( if they are unwilling to give them up for free), in the face of such pronounced demand that you can get seven large for really nasty bones.?
So when dear old mom dies, her organs just go to the highest bidder?
It doesn’t matter that little Johhny has been on a waiting list for a liver because of a genetic defect for seven years, because his family can’t afford to buy a liver at 10K a pop?
Oh, but the billionaire alcoholic who drank his liver to death who was diagonosed with acute liver failure the day before can easily afford to pay 10K, and give himself a new liver to destroy and a whole three more years? Dose that seem fair to you?
The reason it’s illegal to buy and sell human body parts is because of scenarios like this. Someone doesn’t deserve to get a new organ simply because they have more money to buy one with. In the above instance, assuming both the little boy and the billionaire are in the same locale, they would be on the same waiting list. The billionaire would be at the bottom, and odds are little Johnny towards the top, if he has been waiting seven years. The boy deserves the liver more, because:
It was not through his own fault that he needs a new one and is slowly dying.
He has been waiting for a liver longer.
He will get more use out of it. He could live another 70 to 80 years, whereas the alcoholic, even if he stops drinking, is already at least middle-aged and will, at best, get 40-50 years.
Increased supply of available body parts would be counteracted by high prices for said body parts… some few folks will still donate rather than sell, but how to determine who gets low-cost donated parts vs. high cost sold parts?
I think I’m vaguely in favor of the proposal, but I’m having a hard time imagining how it would be administered.
I’d rather get cloning off the ground and flood the market.
pricesshould FALL once the market is freed.
How to tadminister?“siging bonus” of 2k p
up front. The rest buys a life insurance policy that pays my buyer back his two k if I die dirty; Th remainder of the purchse price goes into interest bearing acct, etc.
You oyuld still insist that the purchsed organs be comped to recipients, and contin8e to impose the same rationing protocols as you do at present. You would simply have more organs to ration.