Sarah Rieckmann

English 101
Salyers
22 April 2015

Selling Yourself
Over the past few decades, governments around the world have begun to enact laws in
response to a growing movement of people being paid to participate in scientific studies and to
give away their body parts like eggs, sperm and other biological matter. In The Immortal Life Of
Henrietta Lacks her cells were taken without consent and she was not even paid, her cells
changed scientific studies. Should her family be paid for her donation to science? Due to this an
ethical debate has started to arise, asking do people have the right to sell their body parts if
they want? What problems could arise from this new movement and at what point could it start
to become coercive to the individual as well as their families and society?
It is a fact that in life, some peoples body parts such as kidneys, ovaries, or lungs may
begin to fail on them or get infected with cancerous cells. Even with todays medical advances
not everyone can be saved unless a new body part is waiting to be transplanted. However this
process can be extremely long with some people waiting as long as three to four years on the
National Registry of Organ Donors. For some, that wait can be fatal.
With families desperate to have loved ones return to the life they once knew, this opens
up a black market for those who could sell their organs so people in need of them could receive

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them faster but at a hefty cost. According to havoscope.com, which is a website that compiles
data on black market trading, on the black market in the United States a kidney could sell for as
much as $120,000. While this price is astronomical, the person who sells their kidney only
usually gets a paycheck of about $5,000. But these statistics bring up the issue of is it right for
people to sell their body parts for monetary gains?
While people do have a right to do whatever they please with their bodies, selling their
body parts is wrong. The first, and most straightforward, objection to organ sale is that it is
excessively harmful or dangerous for paid organ donors. Present-day organ trafficking certainly
does often involve excessive and unacceptable levels of harm. Wilkinson, S. (2011). If a person
truly wanted to help others in need they could sign up to be an organ donor so after they pass,
others can enjoy a new life. Through donations, people do not have to pay large fees on top of
hospital bills to get a second chance at life. The selling of organs also brings up a new debate on
other ethical dilemmas.
According to a study done in the American Journal of Kidney Disease, one doctor was
quoted saying, Once money changes hands you open up a huge Pandoras box and regulation,
the word regulation is going to be stretched to different meanings. Allison, T., & Al., E. (2014)
This brings up the dilemma of where exactly is the persons heart at when they donate?
Although the practice of paying subjects to participate in research is not new, it continues to
serve as a point of debate for many members of the research community. Among other issues,
some are concerned that the use of such tactics could induce subjects into taking part in a study
that they would not participate in otherwise (by blinding prospective subjects to risks) or cause

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subjects to conceal information that would disqualify them from the study. Bentley, J., &
Thacker, P. (2004). Are they doing it to benefit anothers life? Or are they doing it just to put
some extra cash in their pocket? 5 US Pharmacy schools did a test according to them Payment
had some influence on respondents potential behaviours regarding concealing information about
restricted activities. However, payment did not appear to have a significant effect on respondents
propensity to neglect to tell researchers about negative effects. Bentley, J., & Thacker, P. (2004).
Also, by paying donors you are now putting a cash value on somebodys life. With these
payments, doctors are practically saying patients X life is only worth Y amount of money
because that is how much their new body part costs. Another huge risk associated with paying
donors for body parts is that this behavior can become coercive quickly. Financial incentives
encourage people to do things that they would not otherwise do. Financial incentives encourage
people to do things that are likely to be harmful to them and which go against their better
judgement Wilkinson, S. (2011). Just like anything else, when money is attached for a services,
people can find ways of obtaining the money that are very extreme. One example of this with
paying donors is that some may result to killing other in order to harvest their body parts for
some quick cash. While very cynical and almost absurd, this can be an extremely real possible
that hospital can face when offering money for body parts.
An even bigger threat is the idea of people reproducing just to harvest body parts and
stem cells from their children. Stem cells are unspecialized cells that once specialized, can turn
into any tissue in the body. These cells are abundantly found in a new born umbilical cord and
while the child is developing. Once harvested, these cells can be directed to turn into any cell in

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the body including fully function organs. With such a real threat, some people could see this as
an opportunity to earn some money at the expense of an unborn child.
Therefore the Lacks family that we learned about in The Immortal Life Of Henrietta
Lacks should not be paid for Henriettas donation to science. The only way they should receive
money is if they sued Hopkins Hospital for taking her cells without consent, but they should not
get money for the cells. HeLa cells have helped science in so many ways. HeLa has helped
build thousands of careers, not to mention more than 60,000 scientific studies, with nearly
10 more being published every day, revealing the secrets of everything from aging and
cancer to mosquito mating and the cellular effects of working in sewers. Margonelli, L.

(2010). The donation Henrietta unwillingly gave is greater than she will ever know.
In conclusion, humans should only be able to donate their body parts, not sell them.
Selling them may lead to worse problems. The Lacks family should not be paid for Henriettas
cells even though they were not donated and taken against her will.

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Bibliography

Allison, T., & Al., E. (2014). Perspectives of Transplant Physicians and Surgeons on
Reimbursement, Compensation, and Incentives for Living Kidney Donors. American Journal of
Kidney Diseases, 64(4), 622-632. Retrieved November 12, 2014, from http://www.ajkd.org/
article/S0272-6386(14)00609-X/fulltext
Bentley, J., & Thacker, P. (2004). The Influence Of Risk And Monetary Payment On The
Research Participation Decision Making Process. Journal of Medical Ethics, 30(3), 293-298.

Margonelli, L. (2010, February 5). Eternal Life. Retrieved November 13, 2014, from http://
www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/books/review/Margonelli-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Wilkinson, S. (2011, October 17). The Sale of Human Organs. Retrieved November 15, 2014,
from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/organs-sale/#Aca