Women Sell Their Eggs, So Why Not a Kidney?
Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 7:08 pm
I was as upset as anyone by the allegations of organ selling that are associated with a New Jersey corruption scandal resulting in more than 40 arrests last week. But a Wall Street Journal column this week calling for more incentives for folks to donate organs makes the issue seem more complex than at first blush. "More than 80,000 Americans now wait for a kidney . . . thirteen of them die daily; the rest languish for years on dialysis," writes Sally Satel. She says she would have gladly considered paying an organ broker to get a kidney several years back when she needed one and there was no donor. That is, if it hadn't been illegal. (She eventually received a kidney from a friend.)
While most of us find it revolting to pay for an organ, we readily accept allowing women to sell their eggs to an infertile couple. In fact, just a few weeks ago, New York State became the first in the nation to allow federally funded researchers to pay women for their eggs for embryonic stem cell research. While men typically donate their sperm free of charge, women expect to get paid for their eggs because of the hassle and risk of injecting themselves with hormones to ripen multiple eggs at once and of having those eggs surgically extracted. The reality is, few donors would go through that if there were no financial incentive. While it's not illegal for women in the United States to get payments for egg donations (it is in Europe), the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has established ethical guidelines for egg donor compensation--a cap of $10,000 per cycle--which most fertility clinics follow.
So taking this one step further, why shouldn't willing donors be allowed to charge reasonable rates for their organs?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/womensel ... 5zZWxsdGhl
While most of us find it revolting to pay for an organ, we readily accept allowing women to sell their eggs to an infertile couple. In fact, just a few weeks ago, New York State became the first in the nation to allow federally funded researchers to pay women for their eggs for embryonic stem cell research. While men typically donate their sperm free of charge, women expect to get paid for their eggs because of the hassle and risk of injecting themselves with hormones to ripen multiple eggs at once and of having those eggs surgically extracted. The reality is, few donors would go through that if there were no financial incentive. While it's not illegal for women in the United States to get payments for egg donations (it is in Europe), the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has established ethical guidelines for egg donor compensation--a cap of $10,000 per cycle--which most fertility clinics follow.
So taking this one step further, why shouldn't willing donors be allowed to charge reasonable rates for their organs?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/womensel ... 5zZWxsdGhl