"Living Cadavers" in Bangladesh: Ethics of the Human Organ Bazaar

The “miracle” success of transplant technology, alongside the commercialization of health care, and the increasing polarization between rich and poor have created the conditions for an illegal but thriving trade in human body parts. Based on 15 months of challenging fieldwork, my research examines the ethics of the organ bazaar, particularly the experiences of 33 kidney sellers living in Bangladesh. On the underground bazaar, not only human kidneys but also livers and corneas are advertised for sale. Recipients, sellers, and brokers regularly post newspaper advertisements to buy and sell organs. The average price for a kidney is US $1,500 in Bangladesh, a country where 78% of people live on less than $2 a day. My research examines serious ethical questions, such as these: Is it right to purchase an organ, even if the organ sought provides longevity? Is the sale of one’s organ a justifiable means of fighting poverty? These questions allow me to examine the ethics of harvesting organs, particularly from the bodies of impoverished people.
\nNarrating the victims’ deeply moving testimonies, my ethnography reveals how organ buyers (both recipients and brokers) tricked and pressured Bangladeshi poor into selling their kidneys. In the end, these sellers were brutally deprived and deceived, and their suffering was extreme. In the post-vending period, sellers’ health, economic, and social conditions significantly deteriorated, yet none of them received the promised post-operative care—not even one appointment. 
\nMy research therefore concludes that organ commodification is serious structural violence against the poor, at the terrible cost of harm and suffering to them. Examining the organ market proposition, I argue that the resulting violence and injustice against the poor provide a hefty reason to rebut this trade. Bangladeshi kidney sellers also stood up against organ commodification, speaking out about their suffering, and about various detrimental and unethical outcomes incurred in this deal. My research aims to offer insights to bioethics and to broaden the debate on human rights by exposing how technological advancement, structural violence, and grinding poverty intersect in the violation of justice to the poor, turning them into “living cadavers.”

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