Lawsuit: The Right to Buy Bone Marrow

A group of patients, backed by the Libertarian group Institute for Justice, is suing the federal government for the right to buy bone marrow that could save their lives. The Institute filed the lawsuit Oct. 26 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, according to FoxNews.com.

Here's an excerpt from the FoxNews.com article:

Mike Hamel is another leukemia patient who joined the lawsuit because he thinks compensation will increase the number of donors.

"Last June I had a bone marrow transplant using my own cells. And that only works in about 50 percent of cases, so there's likelihood that within the next two years I will need a donor."

He said he would like to set up an organization that compensates people for donating...

But Art Caplan, the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and a former member of the National Marrow Donor Program board, says that he "strongly opposes" payment for bone marrow. He argues that many people who donate for free now would no longer do so if others were getting paid for the same thing.

"If you open the door to markets then you're going to end up driving away the altruists," Caplan told FoxNews.com.

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