by Stephen G. Post

About the author: Stephen G. Post is a professor at the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Case Western Reserve University and the author of Inquiries in Bioethics.

Should we allow competent adults to sell their organs and tissues? The libertarian view, with its doctrine that freedom is the highest value, constrained only by the prohibition against harm to others (the “harm principle”) but not to self, would allow the sale of body parts. Even on this view, proponents stop short of condoning the sale of vital organs, for this would result in death, although the logic of libertarianism would seem to allow even this. Libertarians would not be justifying the potential sale of spare body parts if there were no demand. As biomedical science advances in areas such as reproductive technology, fetal...