This is my article with some thoughts on body ownership posted some time
ago on a number of newsgroups.
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Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.extropians,
	talk.politics.misc,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.econ,talk.politics.medicine
Subject: Re: Do I own my body?
References: <2j9lhc$ore@ysics.physics.sunysb.edu>
Sender: sasha1@netcom.com (Alexander Chislenko)
Distribution: world
Organization: University of Massachusetts Boston

Mike Holloway <mhollowa@epo.som.sunysb.edu> writes:

> Does outlawing commerce from
> your body parts NECESSARILY have any impact on your ownership?

  The traditional definition of concepts of ownership and property includes
the rights of the owner to dispose of it on the conditions *they* get to
set.   This right DEFINES the property, together with the right to use.
(Actually, this is more important than the right to use; you can use the
air, the library, etc... - it's your right to restrict/allow usage of an
object to others - on your conditions! - that defines your property).

  Yes, one can redefine the terms.
  The Soviet ideology which I had a misfortune to familiarize myself with in
a more than theoretical way, invented the distinction between a regular
["bad" and abandoned] PRIVATE property and a new ["good"] *PERSONAL*
property which means the communists got to decide when and how you may
dispose of it.
   This concept was one of the key principles - and practices - of the
Soviet Union; it is this this concept that draws the line between
totalitarianism and a free market society.

   The ideas of the communists were exactly the same as of those people who
do not want to see the market in body parts and services today: it's unfair,
uneven, unethical, it can be abused, we can't allow uncoordinated egotistic
interests to rule such an important thing, etc.

   This concept failed miserably in *all* areas of its application.

   It also is very unnatural and required a lot of coersion in every area of
it's application.

   Fortunately for the humanity, this concept died a painful death
together with all the Soviet Union.    [ Or at least, so I thought... ]




   Somebody said:

>"Well, that's similar to our selling our old parents for dog food.
> Economically, its very appealing.  Not only do we not have to worry about
> their care in old age, but we get to make a little profit on the side.
> The reason we don't do it, of course, is that ethics is superior to
> economics."


  Bad analogy.

Taking bodies of your parents is the same as taking *their houses*.
Not the same as disposing of *your* body.

   Putting ethics above economics means respecting people's rights over
the economic/social good.  The prohibition to sell organs restricts *both*
the economy and personal liberties.

  I want to have a right to decide myself if, how and when I may use my body
and on what conditions I may dispose of its parts or provide body-related
(i.e. sex) services.  Just like using my non-bilological, exobilological,
memetic and other possessions. The distinction between them is completely in
the minds of the "ethicist" idiots and in the general semantic swamp of the
current human culture.

  I have very different ideas on my personality architechure and know
better how to use it.
  If I find prostitution a less humiliating option than, e.g., a career in
medical ethics, it's up to me.
  The ethicists may feel that I'm entitled to $?00,000 for a liver transplant,
but not to a $700 for a plane ticket to Russia to visit my dying friend or
$800 for a Harvard course in cognitive psychology - but *I* know better what
I need.

   They have no brains to judge my life and no business messing in it.

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A disclaimer: I do not engage in prostitution, don't take courses,
              and don't have either organs or friends. I am just an opinion.
              I used this account to express myself to the world.