Honolulu Lite
SOME guy was trying to sell one of his kidneys on the Internet auction site eBay the other day and the bidding got up to $5.7 million before the company stopped the sale. It takes guts to
sell your innardsApparently, it's a federal crime to sell certain body parts, even your own. This doesn't seem fair. Where does the government get off telling us that we can't sell chunks of our ourselves to the highest bidder?
Frankly, I didn't know that kidneys were worth so much. I'm not a expert on the human body, but I'm pretty sure that we've got two of just about everything. It was God's way of including spare parts. But there are certain body parts of which we only have one in stock, like a nose, a spleen and, you know, the other thing. One item seems to be enough in those departments, so why can't you get by with just one of some of the other organs?
I haven't researched the subject, but I think I could get by on one kidney if I could put five million smackers in the bank. But there's the question of whether anyone would actually want one of my body parts. Chronologically, they are only 45 years old, but let's be honest here, some of them have done some pretty heavy duty.
I think God did a pretty good job of allocating body parts. But if I were to design the human body, I'd make a few changes. Like, one liver doesn't really seem to be enough. I think three livers would be a good idea. Then, as one went bad, doctors could yank it out and you'd just start using your backup liver. Then after you've drunk that one to death, you go to your third and final liver. By then, you hopefully would be old enough to know better.
I also don't think men really need nipples. I wonder how much a pair of male nipples would sell for on eBay?
Having five toes on each foot also seems to be something of an extravagance. We could probably get by with just three toes: one big one and two kind of wide ones. The finger allocation seems about right, although an extra thumb on each hand located next to the pinky finger would be handy.
The federal law against selling parts of ourselves appears to be a bit arbitrary. Authorities call it "trafficking in human organs," to make it sound like being involved in the cocaine trade. ("Hey, buddy, wanna buy a kilo of gall bladder?")
It's arbitrary because it's all right to sell certain parts of your body. You can sell your hair, for instance. Some people sell their hair to companies that make wigs. You can sell your blood, although most people are coaxed into simply giving it away. You can probably even sell fingernails and toenails, although I don't know who'd want them.
After that, the law gets a little tricky. I doubt if the feds would mind if you sold a finger or two. Just don't try to sell any innards, like 4 or 5 feet of your lower intestine. The federal government is very protective of your icky insides.
You can, however, give your innards away. You read all the time about somebody giving one of their kidneys to a relative. But if the donor received so much as a McDonald's Happy Meal coupon in return, he'd be looking at jail time.
If all of country's financially challenged citizens suddenly realized they were carting millions of dollars worth of spare body parts, they'd riot. So the ban on the sale of body parts probably is a conspiracy by the rich to keep the poor man from getting a leg up on society. Or even a kidney.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
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71224.113@compuserve.com.
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