Peter Krupa

An interesting quarterly journal called The New Atlantis (”A journal of technology and society”) is having a little debate about the idea of selling kidneys on the free market. In this corner, we have the moral argument against an organ market. Later on, a medical doctor “specializing in the care of kidney transplant patients” chips in his two cents in favor of an organ market. And, in my personal favorite piece, one Peter Augustine Lawler gives not so much an argument for as a description of why organ markets are in the cards for our libertarian, post-moral society.

The reason this topic has come up in the first place is because, in the United States, there are a growing number of sick people who need kidney transplants, and a static number of brain-dead people whose kidneys can be harvested. Short of an unprecedented overflowing of good-will from Americans eager to part with an organ for the sake of altruism, we’re running into what has been referred to as a “kidney crisis.”

One possible solution: Considering everyone is born with two kidneys, and a person only really needs one, why not allow people to sell a kidney?

It’s an interesting discussion, and you can more or less sort out where the political chips will fall. The left will be outraged at the anticipated exploitation of the poor, and the right will be incensed for some very good moral reasons, which we’re not sure of exactly but it’s in the Bible somewhere.

That is to say, I don’t think the issue breaks down very well along the right/left split. I don’t want to recap all the arguments here, but a few of them give me reason enough to place myself in favor of the organ market.

For one thing, since secular liberal thinkers have made such a ruckus over the last few decades about a woman’s right to do whatever the fuck she wants with her own body, I don’t see how they can stand behind a law banning her from selling part of it. She can abort babies, or sell her hair for wigs, why can’t she sell a kidney?

Also (and to use another tried and true pro-abortion trope) if you don’t make it legal, what about back-alley kidney dealers? There is obviously a growing demand for kidneys, and the longer you wait, the more sophisticated will become the black market suppliers: the kidney dealers in Brazil, India, Mexico, etc. We all saw how the War on Drugs panned out, and now that we have the chance to do it over again, why not let people sell drugs, (er, kidneys) that are clean, regulated, and don’t kill innocent Colombians?

Which brings me to the principle liberal objection to kidney sales: that they exploit the poor. The thought is that rich people will buy the organs of poor people, and Marx will roll over in his grave. But laws against this won’t help any, because rich people will buy kidneys no matter what. The question is, do we force them to spend their money on sketchy third-world providers that really do exploit the poor, or do we set up a system so everyone knows the score and gets something decent in return? We already let poor people sell plasma. Why not kidneys?

None of which even begins to touch the moral problem. The fact is that an organ market will save (or at least extend) a lot of lives, something generally considered a moral good. Unfortunately, I doubt moral thinkers will get past the initial “yuck” reflex of an organ market, and we’ll end up with a bunch of unproductive polemics.

Anyway, like I said, I know where I pitch my tent. Ona and I have decided that our kidneys are for sale. $100,000 a pop. I’m not sure of our blood types, but we’re young, non-smokers, and we walk a lot.

Come and get ‘em while they’re pink. Cash only please.