Gifting in the Marketplace: Redefining the 'Good' Donor

Abstract

Recent attempts to prevent the development of a regulated market in organs in the US have relied heavily on data on black market organ sales in the developing world as evidence against the moral permissibility of any kind of market system in the US. However morally problematic and practically damaging these black market transactions in the developing world may be, they have very limited applicability to the development of a regulated organ market in the US. When considered in their specifics, the harms of organ sales on the black market and in the developing world serve as evidence to support the idea that the US is well-positioned to devise a regulated organ market that is free of these problems. By considering the nature and types of harms persons who have sold their organs in the black market have suffered, the conditions necessary for autonomous choice within a regulated market system become clear. We assess the extent to which the consequences of organ sales in developing countries and within a black market can be appropriately applied to the development of a regulated organ market in the US and consider the conditions that would allow for autonomous choice by and just treatment of persons who would sell their organs in such a market.

Keywords: organ, sales, market, coercion, exploitation, justice, ethics