Dr. Richard Batista‘s wife’s health was failing, and so was their marriage. To save them both, he offered to be the kidney donor his wife Dawnell badly needed.
Dawnell recovered, but their marriage didn’t. A few years later she filed for divorce. Now her husband says he wants his kidney back. If he can’t have it, he wants a payment of $1.5 million, the estimated worth of the organ.
Medical ethicists say Batista is unlikely to get either, as it’s illegal to exchange money for an organ and the law is clear that no gift, once given, can be forcibly taken back.
This is a sad story on all fronts. But would it be possible 10 or 20 years from now? As Dubner and Levitt wrote in The Times Magazine, our repugnance toward assigning monetary value to human life has grown, receded, and changed over time.
How long until, and under what conditions, will a market in donated organs become acceptable?
(Hat tip: Alex Hagen)
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Personally I don’t mind the monetizing of human organs (sure, flame me for that), but I don’t think the husband is in the right here. The law regarding gifts still applies.
Even if we wanted to extrapolate it to a more commonplace example, consider the kidney gift an exchange. The husband sold his kidney to his (then) wife for $0. It was clearly a good deal for her (if the estimated market value of the kidney is $1.5 million), and it must have been a good deal for him considering he did so voluntarily. However, in this exchange, the husband also was “selling” it without a guarantee of a return, refund, or exchange. Asking for one now is as ridiculous as demanding a refund of a product retailed with the disclaimer “no refunds.”
Granted, the wife is likely losing repeat business by denying this policy, but I’m sure that she doesn’t mind too much.
From what I understand, and I may be wrong, Dr. Batista is not suing to recover the kidney. He is suing to recover the financial benefits that have accrued to Dawnell since she received the kidney. He is trying to position himself as having given something up in order to benefit his wife and their marriage. It is more akin to him arguing that he gave up ‘something’ and dedicated himself to her career… (e.g., an executive, a surgeon) and is therefore due a portion of the compensation that she would not have earned had he not given her the kidney. It is not the organ per se, but the benefits that were received because the organ was ‘given.’
This is so off-the-wall that my instinct is there’s something else behind it, whether a need for publicity or a screenplay/novel someone is pitching or….
He should have moved a little quicker and made it part of the divorce settlement.
As TWC comments there is a value which the wife received that can be differentiated from the “value” of the kidney itself but there is also a potential expense or cost to the donor.
I wonder what would have happened if the donor’s attorney had sued for the expenses which would accrue if the remaining kidney failed.
Susan
As I see it the issue in this case is not whether or not body parts should be monetized. I have mixed feelings about that, and find myself leaning toward allowing organs to be sold.
But a bigger legal issue here is whether a gift should be left as a gift. If a precedent is set here that gifts can be summarily revoked, that would have vast ramifications, going far beyond either property division in divorce or organ donation. It might conceivably affect every relationship that anyone has.
Oh sure. Dr. Batista might as well ask for the marriage ring back while he’s at it…
As someone who has had a transplant, I think a market for donated organs cannot come soon enough. But I think organs will be grown organically through stem cells before there is a market for organs. This is very unfortunate since their are so many people dying every day to get an organ, and so many people who are willing to donate an organ especially for a financial gain. I think it’s a win-win, and needs to be seriously considered.