I recently saw a debate on whether organ trade and an organ market should be legal. Here’s my take on the issue.
Yes, there’s a clear mismatch between supply and demand. But who would be the ones selling their organs? People in precarious situations, without the luxury of long-term choices. The wealthy have no reason to sell their organs—it’s the poor and those in debt who would. An organ market would systematically create an incentive to exploit the economically vulnerable, turning their bodies into commodities.
This brings us to the concept of autonomy. People facing financial desperation have little autonomy. A wealthy individual who has never experienced financial hardship wouldn’t sell their kidney—there’s simply no need (perhaps they’d donate it to a family member or close friend). But the poor don’t have that choice. Their “choice” isn’t voluntary; it’s coerced by poverty. And that is not only economically disastrous but morally catastrophic.
The very idea that body parts could be marketable contradicts the essence of human dignity. It reduces the most vulnerable members of society to mere commodities. An organ market would lead us straight into a form of slavery—though subtler, more insidious. It’s a slavery packaged as economic freedom. It may look like freedom, but it’s nothing more than exploitation.