Can I Sell My Body Parts For Cash?

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Planned Parenthood has been all over the news lately due to some hidden camera interviews with officials allegedly making deals to sell organs and/or body parts of aborted fetuses.

I thought I would do some investigating of my own as to whether or not “Joe Sixpack,” the average citizen, could pick up some extra dough for a kidney or liver.

Laws About The Sale Of Body Parts

The buying and selling of bodily organs for transplant is banned by the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 — Sort of.

In 1983, H. Barry Jacobs started a Virginia company that would buy and sell organs on the open market to aid in the growing demand for transplanting human organs in those who needed them to sustain life.

Healthy kidneys for example would go for about $10,000 with $2,000 to $5,000 finders fee or commission to Jacobs.

It was this buying and selling procedures that led to the NOTA making it a criminal offense to buy or sell organs for transplant.

What Can You Sell?

While you can’t sell a kidney or liver, at least not legally, there are some alternatives you can sell. Most of them are body parts that can be replenished.

For example many seniors on fixed income can donate plasma for about $50 a week and that could put some groceries on the table.

You can sell your hair for as much as $600, but it must be “virgin hair.” But that they mean never colored, or blow dried, or attached to a head that lives on Big Macs with vodka chasers and daily pot smoking.

You can sell your sperm if you are male although it would probably be easier to get a date with Jennifer Aniston than to get a sperm donor card. About 95 percent of males don’t make the cut.

You'll need a pretty clean family heath history on both sides of your linage.

If you are a smokin’ hot, young college coed, on a soccer scholarship with an art grant, you could be looking at over $4,000 to donate your eggs.

The more desired physical or mental traits you have the more your eggs are worth. Some donors have claimed payments of $10,000 or more. Student loan anyone??

You can take part in clinical trials that are held at various universities and testing centers looking for volunteers to try new products.

If your get trial turns out to a bad one you might have a big pay day thanks to a law suit.

If you're looking for a quick buck by participating in research, here are some links to help get you started:

The cleverly-named ClinicalTrials.gov offers the definitive searchable database of clinical trials.
How to Sell Your Hair Online is the place to learn how to get your hair in shape and how to package it for shipment.
BloodBanker.com (which is, I'm told, different from Countrywide Financial) has a searchable listing of plasma donation sites.

Some Final Thoughts

The only nation that currently allows the legal buying and selling of organs is Iran. Foreigners are forbidden from purchase and transplants are limited to same nationality and is charity based and serviced by volunteers.

Supposedly a kid sold a kidney to buy an iPad.

Estimates put organ transplants from the black market at a little over 40 percent. Unfortunately many people who receive organs from the black market contract both AIDS and/or hepatitis.

If you need a couple of extra bucks there are at least 9 Body Parts You Can Sell For Cash.

But if you come across someone selling kidneys out of the back of van in front of the old K-Mart building it might be a good idea to keep driving.

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