Law Commons^™

No Value For A Pound Of Flesh: Extending Marketinalienability Of The Human Body, Andrew Wancata

Journal of Law and Health

In the United States and many countries throughout the world, selling non-regenerative organs for monetary gain constitutes a serious criminal offense. Notwithstanding this strong ban on the sale of organs, United States citizens are permitted to sell other "parts" of their bodies, including blood, sperm, and eggs ("ova"), for market value because current statutes do not consider reproductive cells and other regenerative tissue "organs" or even within the ambit of "parts." Rather, in most contexts, regenerative cells and tissue are though of as "products" of the human body. In fact, the United States remains one of only a few industrialized …