This forum has featured a debate about legalizing markets for bodily organs.
Now a Bloomberg Businessweek editorial explores a different approach:
[L]aw enforcement alone can’t destroy the black market. Another approach is to encourage more people to donate organs. To this end, in October, a bioethics council in the U.K. recommended that pilot programs be created to test whether more people would be prepared to bequeath their body parts after death if, in return, the government offered to pay their funeral expenses.
This is a smart approach. Covering funeral costs could encourage altruism without actually motivating people who would otherwise not donate to do so for the payoff.
Other reasonable enticements have been proposed for “cadaveric donation” of hearts, lungs, livers, pancreases, kidneys, corneas and other organs for transplant. These include reduced fees on driver’s licenses, payments after death to a charity of the donor’s choice, and allowing donors greater priority if they themselves need an organ transplant. The priority-for-transplant strategy is being tried in Israel and Singapore, but it isn’t yet known whether it’s getting more people to agree to donate.
