May 25, 2006 2:48PM

Ezra Klein, Libertarian?

By Michael F. Cannon

Since I’ve disagreed with Ezra Klein in the past, I am pleased to report that we agree on what to do about the 7,000 Americans who die every year while waiting for transplantable organs. In a recent post, Klein notes that the shortage of organs is due to a ban on payments to organ providers. Klein advocates lifting that ban. My favorite line:

We’ve stupidly disallowed payment for organs (if money can’t buy you life, why keep it around?)…

Klein brought to mind an observation made by Prof. Richard Epstein last week in the Wall Street Journal:

Only a bioethicist could prefer a world in which we have 1,000 altruists per annum and over 6,500 excess deaths [to] one in which we have no altruists and no excess deaths.

In Healthy Competition, Mike Tanner and I argue for repeal of Sen. Orrin Hatch’s 1984 National Organ Transplant Act, which prohibits payments to organ providers. 


In a recent issue of Cato’s Regulation magazine, Prof. Lloyd Cohen throws up his hands and issues a challenge to those opposed to such payments. Cohen has re‐​written his will to ensure that when he dies, his organs cannot be harvested unless his estate is paid $864.27 per organ. Why? Because that requirement will create a real‐​life situation where paying up will generate more transplantable organs. That will force the bioethicists to explain to four, maybe five families who have their checkbooks in hand, We’re sorry, but your loved one must die for our principles. Cohen urges others to insert similar clauses into their wills, just to get the message through the bioethicists’ heads.


Cohen and other powerful presenters will speak at a June 12 conference on organ markets at the American Enterprise Institute.