A Stitch in Haste

A law professor weighs in on the concurrent stories of the India kidney scandal and the calls in the U.K. for "opt-out" organ donation at death rather than "opt-in" —

"If poverty and wealth are often unearned, however, it is no less true that good and ill health are often unearned. ... One could, in fact, invoke such desperation as evidence that organ sale ought to be permitted but regulated."

My comment at that blawg:

Of course, a true Rawlsian (or a utilitarian) could even argue that organ donation should be compulsory. And by that I don't just mean after death, as is being proposed in the U.K.

If society is entitled to seize your unearned wealth, then why is it also not entitled to seize your unearned kidney?

And for those who think kidneys are too extreme, how about compulsory blood donations — maybe when you report for jury duty or file your tax return?

See also, "military conscription" — if the state can seize your entire body, then why not just one kidney or pint of blood?

Meanwhile:

Money is clearly the issue in situations involving the human body. Paying young women for eggs to be fertilized and men for sperm is now common practice — even though they are still regularly referred to as "donors." Yet the sale of tissue, cells and eggs for stem-cell research or organs for transplant are still the subject of vehement dispute.

The "vehement dispute" is between those who (correctly) recognize the inherent right to control oneself — an elegant synthesis of freedom of contract and bodily autonomy — and those who (incorrectly) label the revulsion of third parties as "externalities" warranting infringement of the inherent liberty of competent consenting adults.

Strangers to a contract, transaction or other arrangement might be repulsed at the notion of whites and blacks eating at the same lunch counter, or of women working outside the home, or of two gays having sexual intercourse in the privacy of their own bedroom, or of a poor healthy person selling his kidney to an ill rich person. So what? Generally speaking, we (no longer) grant revulsion the dignity of a legal argument or a majoritarian vote.

So too should it be with bodily integrity: what competent consenting adults choose to do with their bodies should not be subject to a "that's just wrong" veto by third parties, no matter how numerous or ardent they may be. Nothing is ever "just wrong." An act either infringes upon the legitimate rights of unwilling others or it does not. But there is simply no "right not to be disgusted."

Finally, I will reprint a "Question" from a while back:

"Is it not repugnant that some people are willing to let others die so that their stomachs won't become queasy at the thought that someone, somewhere is selling a kidney?"

That the answer to this question "but of course" is the most modest proposal of all.

(Via Greg Mankiw by way of East Coast Libertarian. More thoughts at Market Power.)