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An Uneasy Case against Property Rights in Body Parts*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2009

Stephen R. Munzer
Affiliation:
Law, University of California, Los Angeles

Extract

This essay deals with property rights in body parts that can be exchanged in a market. The inquiry arises in the following context. With some exceptions, the laws of many countries permit only the donation, not the sale, of body parts. Yet for some years there has existed a shortage of body parts for transplantation and other medical uses. It might then appear that if more sales were legally permitted, the supply of body parts would increase, because people would have more incentive to sell than they currently have to donate. To allow sales is to recognize property rights in body parts. To allow sales, however, makes body parts into “commodities”—that is, things that can be bought and sold in a market. And some view it as morally objectionable to treat body parts as commodities.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1994

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References

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Economists cannot tell us the value of bodily integrity, emotional well-being, or life because these are not defined by the market. The costs of accidents can only be determined collectively—after the fact by a judge or jury, or before by a legislature or regulatory agency.

73 Ibid., pp. 790, 820.