JSPES, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Summer 2002 )
p. 227-236

A Free Market for Human Organs

Megan Clay and Walter Block

The authors draw attention to the shortage of human organs which, as surgical methods improve, can frequently be used to save the lives of the living after their owners are deprived of their use by death. They propose the legalization of the sale of body parts as a legitimate free market activity, and argue that in such conditions the price of human body parts would fall to a sufficiently low level to discourage the theft of human organs which the present laws are intended to prevent.