PARTS IS PARTS (cont.)

Individual body parts have price tags (JENNIFER SARANOW, May 6, 2003, The Wall Street Journal)

People want your body. And they are willing to pay for it.

Even as the medical community debates the wisdom of giving people incentives to donate organs, the free market is increasingly putting a price tag on individual body parts. A 1984 federal law makes it a crime to sell vital organs, but it specifies only what can't be sold, not what can.

Many replaceable parts, or those extracted without causing harm, can be legally sold, and these days that market is expanding well beyond the traditional lineup of sperm, blood plasma and hair. Not only is demand for eggs growing as more people turn to fertility clinics, but the Internet has also helped create a tiny industry in breast milk. There is even a niche for urine, as the growing use of drug tests prompts people with tainted samples to seek out ones that will pass muster.

The market demand "has created a kind of eBay of the body," says Arthur Caplan, director for the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Anger at private clinic's IVF deals (Isabel Oakeshott, Evening Standard)

A London fertility clinic is today accused of exploiting women in less wealthy areas who need IVF treatment.

The Cromwell IVF and Fertility Centre has just opened a clinic in Darlington, joining others in Swansea, Cardiff and Newcastle.

The clinics encourage women who cannot give birth by offering them free treatment, worth thousands of pounds, in return for their eggs. Dr Kamal Ahuja, the Cromwell's scientific director, admitted the new scheme was designed to increase the number of eggs available. Demand is soaring in the affluent south.

Leading campaigner Josephine Quintaville, of the pro-life group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: "I think the Cromwell are sailing pretty close to the wind. This is clearly taking advantage of poorer people. The rich can get their hands on eggs, whatever the cost to the donor."

Where else can a purely materialistic worldview lead but to the commodification of the human being? Posted by Orrin Judd at May 13, 2003 1:27 PM