The Ethics of National and International Organ Markets

Introduction
This essay explores whether a market in human organs could exist without exploitation. Promoting freedom of choice and saving lives are both social goods, and allowing individuals to sell their organs would serve both these social ends. However, when dealing with questions of international policy, the most difficult ethical issue is not whether selling body parts is moral, but whether it is possible to ethically administer a global market in organs, given the current context of unpredictable and inequitable informed consent and contract enforcement regimes. Not all problems shared by nations have international solutions. Solving the human organ shortage is one of them. While compensating living kidney donors might serve as a good national policy if implemented correctly, a global market in kidneys is currently unethical given the unpre-dictability of enforcement of such contracts on the international level.