May 22 2008
Shopping for bodies can be a tempting dream
There seem to be more and more stories surfacing on the global organ commodity market. Even though such stories aren’t necessarily related to slavery, organ commodification undoubtedly falls under “human goods,” and the disconnection of humanness from the human body.
In the New Scientist, Michele Goodwin reviewed Donna Dickenson’s book, Body Shopping:
If there was any doubt whether the human body is a global commodity, Dickenson ably puts it to rest.
Dickenson explores organ commodification from face transplants to sketchy schemes that dupe patients into organ donation. Goodwin writes,
The book could not be more timely. Last month, Michael Mastromarino, a former oral surgeon, pleaded guilty to pillaging 1800 bodies for bones, ligaments, heart valves, organs and other valuable tissues. His New Jersey biotech firm was more like a human chop shop, paying funeral directors $1000 per pillaged corpse and later reselling the parts, earning at least $13,000 per body. After snatching the desired parts, Mastromarino stuffed the bodies with plumbing piping to deceive relatives. Body parts from diseased corpses with AIDS, cancer, hepatitis and other serious illnesses were sold for transplantation to unsuspecting hospitals, doctors and patients throughout the US and abroad.
Most of the more than 1 million Americans that receive tissue, bone and tendon transplants from cadavers every year would probably be shocked to discover how the parts were obtained, according to Goodwin.
But it’s too easy to blame corporations or black markets for all of the implications of the organ trade, because, as with slavery, the goods follow the market. And in a way, Dickenson’s theory of what it comes down to, “dreams of infinite regeneration, immortality, and eternal youth,” has similarities to the way that slave-using culture dehumanizes bodies, breaking them down into what they’re physically good for, forcing them under the domination of what it desires.
Goodwin writes,
While some commentators argue that body shopping is ethically problematic because organs and other human parts are “moral” or community property and not commercial products, Dickenson offers a perspective that is courageous and more convincing. She argues that the body should never be a consumer good because it should never be “merely a thing”. To Dickenson, what is at stake is our dignity.
