Saving Lives: Challenging the Ban on Compensating Bone Marrow Donors

FOR MORE ON THIS CASE, VISIT http://www.ij.org/bonemarrow

Every year, 1,000 Americans die because they cannot find a matching bone marrow donor. Minorities are hit especially hard. Common sense suggests that offering modest incentives to attract more bone marrow donors would be worth pursuing, but federal law makes that a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

That is why on October 28, 2009, adults with deadly blood diseases, the parents of sick children, a California nonprofit and a world-renowned medical doctor who specializes in bone marrow research joined with the Institute for Justice to launch a legal fight against the U.S. Attorney General to put an end to a ban on offering compensation for bone marrow donors.

The National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984 treats compensation for marrow donors as though it were black-market organ sales. Under NOTA, giving a college student a scholarship or a new homeowner a mortgage payment for donating marrow would land everyone—doctors, nurses, donors and patients—in federal prison for up to five years.

NOTAs criminal ban violates equal protection because it arbitrarily treats renewable bone marrow like nonrenewable solid organs instead of like other renewable or inexhaustible cells—such as blood—for which compensated donation is legal. That makes no sense because bone marrow, unlike organs such as kidneys, replenishes itself in just a few weeks after it is donated, leaving the donor whole once again. The ban also violates substantive due process because it irrationally interferes with the right to participate in safe, accepted, lifesaving, and otherwise legal medical treatment.




The only thing the bone marrow provision of NOTA appears to accomplish is unnecessary deaths. A victory in this case will not only give hope to thousands facing deadly diseases, but also reaffirm bedrock principles about constitutional protection for individual liberty. This is the first time NOTA has ever been the subject of a constitutional challenge.

'Actual Bone Marrow Donation' photo reproduced under a Creative Commons license from flickr user limowreck666.

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Nonprofits & Activism

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[NeonShadowsx]

Thank you for fighting for our liberty! If only there were more decent people on the legislative side of things to make your job easier...

[4thstuning]

Good for the Institute of Justice! People either own their bodies or they're slaves. Being free enough to sell what others need benefits all.

[RawOn10]

Institute for "Justice?" Are you people going to pervert the meaning of every single decent word in the English language? "Justice" "Liberty" "Freedom" "Heritage" "Patriot" and so on ... you've turned them into their direct opposites. Shame on you.

[goldengirl67]

I am joining as soon as I can and telling everyone I know to educate them on it - all doctor's should be asking eligible patients right in their offices if they want to register - I think a ton of people would just say yes! do the swabbing right there while they have them and it is convenient for the donor because they don't have to make an extra trip out - forget about waiting for people to sign up! lives need to be saved.

[anm30]

I just registered today to become a donor! I hope to save a life and help someone who desperatly needs this! PLEASE do the same!

[DejaVuRocksNebraska]

If it is legal to compensate donors of platelets, plasma or even sperm, there is no reason that it should be illegal to compensate bone marrow donors. It simply doesn't make sense. Watch the video, share it. It could save lives, maybe one day the life of someone you know and love.

[muridsilat]

Beyond the question of marrow vs. kidneys, under what constitutional authority would the federal government claim jurisdiction over kidneys sold within a state? I am absolutely disgusted. While it may be convenient for the federal government to think so, Alexander Hamilton was not the only founding father! His notions of an omnipotent national government were rejected in the Philadelphia Convention AND in the state ratifying conventions.

[hdskmb]

How do you donate Bone Marrow? I'll do it in a heartbeat, I don't need anyone to compensate me.

[bulldog217831]

Better yet... You can get paid to donate sperm, but not bone marrow!!! WTF is right!!  Yet another reason to VOTE LIBERTARIAN!!!

[PrayingForDaylight]

What stupid bureaucrat came up with this crap. Lets just keep on expanding government! What's freaking next? Ban blood donations?!