Markets in Kidneys: A Moral Case

I argue in favor of allowing markets in human kidneys. I think that people should be allowed to buy and sell kidneys, just like they do any other commodity that’s traded between willing, consenting, rational adults. But, we don’t have to give complex theoretical arguments in favor of markets in human kidneys. We can just look at the human stories. Take for example Peter Randall. Peter Randall became famous in 2003 for offering his kidney for sale on EBay. He wasn’t doing this as a publicity stunt or because he was greedy and wanted a new Ferrari. He was doing it because he thought it was the only way in which he could raise enough money to pay for the therapy of his daughter Alice, who at the time was six years old and suffering from cerebral palsy. Allowing a market in human kidneys would allow somebody like Peter Randall to sell his kidney legally and safely in order to secure the money that he needs to help his daughter or for whatever other reason he might have for wishing to secure it. And notice that it’s not just concern for Alice Randall and her father Peter that might drive us to allow a market in human kidneys. He received at least three very serious offers, all from the United States, from people who needed his kidney to continue to live or else to rescue themselves from crippling dialysis. Now you might object and say the gift of life is simply too priceless to put a price tag on and so we should continue to keep kidney sales illegal. But this seems rather odd. After all, when we have a transplant operation from a living donor into the body of a living recipient everybody in the operating theater is being paid: the anesthesiologist, the surgeons, the nurses. The only person who is not being paid is the person who is actually giving up the most precious commodity of all: the kidney. I think that that’s morally wrong. And I think we should allow payment for kidneys just as we allow payment for all other types of medical services and products. Banning kidney sales means that somebody like Alice Randall won’t get the therapy that she needs and the people who wanted to buy her father’s kidney either will not get to see their children grow up or else will do so only through the mask of the pain of dialysis.