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opinion BACK PA G E BY EZRA LEVANT Bad laws breed organ black market mayors and five rabbis. The syndicate bought organs overseas to sell in the U.S. Item: China's vice minister for health I admits prisoners have their organs "har- vested" and sold. China promises to abolish not just these forcible surgeries but all voluntary organ trade, too. Item: There are now just 33 sperm donors for all of Canada, including only one South Asian donor. The industry has shut down in the wake of 2004's Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which abol- ished the nominal payment to donors. Wealthy Canadians can go to the U.S., where payment is allowed. Even more than the old war on drugs, the new war on paid organ donations is doomed to fail — for the same reasons. It's supply and demand. There are over 100,000 people on the U.S. organ donor waiting list and more than 4,000 on Canada's list. Most of those are for kidneys — an organ that, unlike a heart, can be donated by someone who's alive. But 20 people in North America die every day waiting for organs that just don't come. And why should they come? It's ille- gal to receive payment for an organ. So other than family or a close friend, who would go through the pain of becoming a live donor of a kidney? It's tough enough to get someone to volunteer at a church bingo night. The answer is obvious: poor people, not in Canada but probably in places like India, where a thriving black mar- ket for kidneys exists. Brokers pay as little as $3,000 for a kidney and sell it for tem: An FBI sting busts a kidney traf- ficking ring in New Jersey. Fourty-four people are arrested, including three more than $100,000 in North America. That's a lot of markup for the middlemen, and not much money for the donor — just like the drug trade. But look again at that $3,000 donor. That's four years' income for the average Indian — enough to improve his family's life immeasurably. An impoverished Indian wouldn't altruistically donate his kidney to an unknown Canadian patient — just like an Indian engineer wouldn't donate his software development skills to a Canadian company. We know that instinctively with unimportant matters like computers. Why do we pretend that the laws of supply and demand are sus- pended for kidneys? The official ethical rationale for ban- ning the sale of human tissue is a socialist one: if we permit organs to be bought and sold, only rich people will be able to afford them. As Canada's 2004 ban on paying for sperm shows, the government would rather that no one have access rather than just "the rich." But is $3,000 for a kidney really beyond the reach of even the Canadian poor? Remove the trafficking middle- men; if Indian donors were paid $10,000 by a province's health insurance plan, isn't that a lot cheaper than endless dialysis and treatment without a transplant? This buys into the logic of government health care — that all decisions ought to be based on what's most "efficient" for the state. It's about the power of government to make decisions for you. Legalizing the trade in kidneys would greatly increase the supply and choice of kidneys, and thus reduce the cost of it. That would take away the life-and-death power now wielded by the "ethicists" who run the kid- ney waiting lines in Canada and the U.S. But the economic argu- ments are unimportant; the real question is why the gov- ernment is condemning citizens to death every day through this puritan regula- tion. Is a socialist dream of "free" kidneys really justification enough to kill citizens every single day? So instead of by price, kidneys are rationed by other criteria. Officially, it's based on what bureaucrats think is medi- cally appropriate. But only a naïf would think other factors, like personal and financial connections, don't carry weight. Political insider Dalton Camp became Canada's oldest organ transplant recipi- ent at age 72. Coincidence? Why should a dying patient have to be "medically deserving" if he can come to a consensual agreement with a willing donor? Canada's laws against organ pricing are having precisely the opposite results as intended. Organ and tissue supplies are scarce; a black market is thriving; and only the rich can afford illegal organs. As the baby boomers close in on 70, expect this problem to grow. Ezra Levant is a Calgary lawyer. He can be reached at ezra@ezralevant.com McKellar. The first choice for structured settlements. No controversy. The McKellar Structured Settlement™ GUELPH 1-800-265-8381 Untitled-4 1 EDMONTON 780-420-0897 46 OC T O BER 2009 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com HALIFAX 1-800-565-0695 USA 1-800-265-2789 www.mckellar.com 7/9/09 12:48:24 PM SCOTT PAGE