Buying and Selling Body Parts Case Study review the case study Buying and Selling Body Parts found on page 19 of your textbook. First, share your reaction

Buying and Selling Body Parts Case Study review the case study Buying and Selling Body Parts found on page 19 of your textbook.

First, share your reactions to the case. How did you feel when you read about this practice? Why do you think you felt this way? Consider what you’ve learned about your own moral/ethical perspective in your answer.

Then, analyze the case from a utilitarian perspective: is buying and selling body parts an ethical practice?

Finally, select an additional moral or ethical theory from the textbook. Analyze the case from that perspective. From this perspective, is buying and selling body parts an ethical practice? Compare and contrast the two perspectives.

500~800 characters CASE STUDY BUYING AND SELLING BODY PARTS
Attaining accurate facts and fi gures regarding the black and grey market in body
parts is exceptionally diffi cult. Nonetheless, it is clear that the market is growing
rapidly and that it is global. More people are selling their body parts to people from
across the globe; body parts that are bought and sold include kidneys, eggs, sperm,
blood and plasma (Boxes 2.3, 2.4, 2.5). Th is market is sometimes illegal, for
example the harvesting of body parts from unsuspecting donors or the sale of parts
in coun-tries where such sale is illegal; sometimes it is completely legal, for example
the selling of eggs in the US; and sometimes it is “grey”, for example practices of
infer-tility clinics in the Mediterranean where “all expenses paid holidays” also
provide opportunities for egg- selling. Th e illegal side of the organ trade and its links
with organized crime have put the topic fi rmly in the public domain and it is a
common topic for television, fi lms and discussion as well as an issue for policymakers. Just as with the case study of FGC, the language is important: terms like
“donor” are oft en used even when what is really being described is a “sale”, for
instance in the term “paid donation” (a contradiction in terms).Despite the diffi culties,
some fi gures are available. For instance, a 2003 Punjab government inquiry
estimated that nearly 3500 people from Sargodha had sold their kidneys through the
1990s to buyers from around the world. In 2006 the BBC con-ducted an undercover
investigation that suggested that China was routinely selling organs of prisoners on
death row: under the pretence of seeking a liver for his sick father, the journalist
reported that “one hospital said it could provide a liver at a cost of £50,000
(US$94,400), with the chief surgeon confi rming an executed prisoner could be the
donor”. Whatever else it may be, the market in body parts is hugely lucrative,
particularly for medical merchants and middlemen who broker deals between buyers
and sellers. For instance, a 2004 WHO report (Nullis- Kapp 2004) reports medical
brokers charging between US$100,000 and US$200,000 to organize a transplant
while paying the “donors” as little as US$1000. Th ose who support organ sale argue
that it is a win–win situation. Th e buyers win because they are able to access an
organ or other body part that they greatly desire and which is either necessary for
their survival (e.g. in kidney sale) or essential to meeting an important need (e.g. for
sperm or eggs). Th e vendors win in that they are paid sig-nifi cant amounts of
money that otherwise would be unattainable. Th ey can then use this money to make
signifi cant diff erences to their own and their family’s situations. But the claim that
vendors always win is not borne out by the evidence (see Box 2.4).In other areas the
data are more mixed. For instance, in egg sale it seems that at least some vendors
do benefi t. Th e market in eggs and embryos is growing fast because it is
increasingly older women who seek to reproduce. As with organ sale, this is a global
market, and eggs from younger women are preferred because they are more likely to
lead to successful outcomes. To meet this demand for eggs, clinics across the US
and Europe buy eggs from “donors”; as with kidneys, “buyers” are more advantaged
(socioeconomically, as well as in terms of nationality and ethnicity) and “donors” are
from poorer, less privileged demographic groups. For example, clinics in southern
Europe (particularly Spain, Greece and Cyprus) purchase eggs from eastern
European women to serve the reproductive wishes of western European women
from countries where egg- selling is prohibited (Box 2.5). Th ese “donors” go to
Spain for a few weeks for a “paid holiday”, have their eggs harvested and return to
eastern Europe with enough to live on for six months or more. Eggs are also
purchased from Spanish students and US clinics routinely advertise in US college
newspapers, off ering up to US$100,000, depending on how far the donor has the
desirable characteristics of education, health, race, physical traits and beauty.
We have little data on the long- term eff ects of egg harvesting, particularly on the
fertility of the women whose eggs are harvested. However, at least some egg- sellers,
especially those who repeatedly sell their eggs, go through unnecessary hormonal
stimulation and uncomfortable procedures. Harvesting eggs is not a straightforward
matter like collecting sperm. It can be a lengthy, painful and potentially dangerous
procedure involving the injection of a powerful drug known as follicle stimulating
hormone. Medical experts believe 1 per cent of women undergoing this can suff er
serious side eff ects known as ovarian hyper- stimulation syndrome that in extreme
cases can prove fatal. Donna Dickenson reports a number of worrying aspects of this
global trade in her book Body Shopping:[T]he Eastern European and Mediterranean
egg- selling clinics routinely extract three or four times the quantity of eggs that would
be taken in a well- run clinic. Women are actually given a productivity bonus if they
produce high numbers of ova. In one Kiev clinic, for example, women are off ered a
basic fee of only $300, but given a bonus of $200 if they produce as many as forty
eggs. Doses of follicle- stimulating hormone at more than twice the recommended
maximum level are routinely used to produce these bumper crops. But the human
female is programmed by nature to produce only one or at most two eggs per cycle.
(2008: 6)Th is said, for most women the process does not seem to be particularly
harmful in the short term.Th is case study is discussed in Chapter 4. In addition the
following questions may be useful in helping to explore this case study.

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