4 ms·

Since the subject is the Netherlands, I have a hard time reconciling the position that it should be legal to sell one's body (prostitution) but illegal to sell

Since the subject is the Netherlands, I have a hard time reconciling the position that it should be legal to sell one's body (prostitution) but illegal to sell one's body (blood, marrow, cadavers, organs upon death).

kofejnik 8y ago
selling your labor is not the same as selling physical body parts
- humanrebar 8y ago
  > Poor people shouldn't have to resort to selling their body. This argument in particular applies in both cases.
  - vertex-four 8y ago
    Only via a linguistic trick. We could expand that argument to suggest that poor people shouldn’t ever have to work for a living - labour is, of course, selling your body.
    - humanrebar 8y ago
      Not "only" via a linguistic trick. There are several philosophies that hold that there is something special about each human life that needs to be preserved. Some of those find prostitution, especially poverty driven varieties, to be a violation of that. Some of those find selling of body parts, especially poverty driven sales, to be a violation of that as well. In other words, both stem from a belief in "human dignity".
      - vertex-four 8y ago
        A true belief in human dignity would also suggest that a massive amount of poorly-paid jobs that, of course, only people in poverty get forced into, should not exist, either. But that would require an overhaul of how we view work as a society, and we can live the happy lie of just banning sex work because some people think sex is specially important in a way that almost nothing else a human can do is. There isn't really anything special about sex work, societal views on it aside. It's hard work, but for many people it causes no more harm to their dignity than anything else they could be doing. Source: sex worker friends.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
Sure those two things sound similar when you write them like this, but they're completely different things. Prostitution is just another form of labor, with above-average health & safety dangers, and where legalization helps reduce those dangers. Selling body parts involves huge health risks and (beyond blood & marrow), permanent body damage and/or death of the seller. This is not something you absolutely don't want people to feel pressured into. It scales up to serious abuse and suffering.
- gtCameron 8y ago
  Good point. No health risks or risk of abuse with prostitution
  - sjwright 8y ago
    Or coal mining? There are plenty of dangerous jobs in industries known to exploit workers. Prostitution has its problems but it’s hardly the worst.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  I think "completely different" is overstating it. If the paternalistic instinct is to say people who sell body parts are prone to abuse, certainly the same can be said about prostitution. Similarly, if the average person is ill equipped to gauge risks and bear the consequences of poor risk management, then the calculus applies in sex (STIs, pregnancy, rape, etc.) and in organ donation. Though the most interesting organ-based financial instruments would be rights to harvest organs post mortem, which several people in this thread seem to be overlooking. And no matter how intellectually satisfying it would be if it were true, I don't think Western culture (or psychology in general) agrees with you that sex is just another service like computer repair. We don't have special categories of crimes for forced computer repair at gunpoint for instance. And we don't shame and fire overbearing bosses for pressuring employees into illicit computer repair.
elsjaako 8y ago
If you make selling blood illegal you don't get a black market. Both the blood and the prostitution decisions are based on reducing harm.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > If you make selling blood illegal you don't get a black market No, but only because the European countries which prohibit compensation for tissue donations solve their shortages by importing tissue from the US.
stfwn 8y ago
Prostitution being legal is only in part about freedom. It also serves to enable law enforcement to ensure safe working conditions, sniff out human trafficking, criminals using underage sex workers and other crimes that are particular to this type of work. This would be much harder if the whole industry took place underground. This part of the argument does not apply to the case of selling your body after death. Making it illegal to sell one's body after death seems more logical to me then.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  You can sell many body parts and fluids without dying: milk, marrow, semen, 1 kidney, pieces of liver, blood, eggs, etc. And has been pointed out by you and others, one can theoretically sell the rights to one's body parts after death, assuming the contract is enforced.
AndyMcConachie 8y ago
Organ donors don't sell their body parts. When you're dead it's kinda hard to make a profit.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  You can sell the option. Or pay to their estate. The 35 year old dying in a car accident probably has a lot of people depending on them that could use the money. It could be a “free” life insurance policy.
lawn 8y ago
The problem with blood donations is it's very expensive or impossible to test if the blood is clean. Therefore they rely on self reporting by the donors. If blood instead was paid for people would be incentivized to lie, people desperate for cash wouldn't care about the consequences. For example junkies who might have all sorts of shit in their system.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  Getting enough blood through voluntary donations is usually simple. Getting enough plasma or various immunoglobulins can be the difficult part. And sometimes you heavily depend on a few outlier cases, like this guy that’s estimated to have saved 2.4million through his 1000 donations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harrison_(blood_donor) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harrison_(blood_donor)
- maxerickson 8y ago
  Every unit of blood is tested before use. Many of the screening questions just reduce waste in the face of plenty of willing donors.
  - lawn 8y ago
    Yes but it's not an exhaustive test. There are many illnesses that are very expensive to screen for and some that are basically undetectable.

kofejnik 8y ago

selling your labor is not the same as selling physical body parts

humanrebar 8y ago
> Poor people shouldn't have to resort to selling their body. This argument in particular applies in both cases.
- vertex-four 8y ago
  Only via a linguistic trick. We could expand that argument to suggest that poor people shouldn’t ever have to work for a living - labour is, of course, selling your body.
  - humanrebar 8y ago
    Not "only" via a linguistic trick. There are several philosophies that hold that there is something special about each human life that needs to be preserved. Some of those find prostitution, especially poverty driven varieties, to be a violation of that. Some of those find selling of body parts, especially poverty driven sales, to be a violation of that as well. In other words, both stem from a belief in "human dignity".
    - vertex-four 8y ago
      A true belief in human dignity would also suggest that a massive amount of poorly-paid jobs that, of course, only people in poverty get forced into, should not exist, either. But that would require an overhaul of how we view work as a society, and we can live the happy lie of just banning sex work because some people think sex is specially important in a way that almost nothing else a human can do is. There isn't really anything special about sex work, societal views on it aside. It's hard work, but for many people it causes no more harm to their dignity than anything else they could be doing. Source: sex worker friends.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

Sure those two things sound similar when you write them like this, but they're completely different things. Prostitution is just another form of labor, with above-average health & safety dangers, and where legalization helps reduce those dangers. Selling body parts involves huge health risks and (beyond blood & marrow), permanent body damage and/or death of the seller. This is not something you absolutely don't want people to feel pressured into. It scales up to serious abuse and suffering.

gtCameron 8y ago
Good point. No health risks or risk of abuse with prostitution
- sjwright 8y ago
  Or coal mining? There are plenty of dangerous jobs in industries known to exploit workers. Prostitution has its problems but it’s hardly the worst.
humanrebar 8y ago
I think "completely different" is overstating it. If the paternalistic instinct is to say people who sell body parts are prone to abuse, certainly the same can be said about prostitution. Similarly, if the average person is ill equipped to gauge risks and bear the consequences of poor risk management, then the calculus applies in sex (STIs, pregnancy, rape, etc.) and in organ donation. Though the most interesting organ-based financial instruments would be rights to harvest organs post mortem, which several people in this thread seem to be overlooking. And no matter how intellectually satisfying it would be if it were true, I don't think Western culture (or psychology in general) agrees with you that sex is just another service like computer repair. We don't have special categories of crimes for forced computer repair at gunpoint for instance. And we don't shame and fire overbearing bosses for pressuring employees into illicit computer repair.

elsjaako 8y ago

If you make selling blood illegal you don't get a black market. Both the blood and the prostitution decisions are based on reducing harm.

chimeracoder 8y ago
> If you make selling blood illegal you don't get a black market No, but only because the European countries which prohibit compensation for tissue donations solve their shortages by importing tissue from the US.

stfwn 8y ago

Prostitution being legal is only in part about freedom. It also serves to enable law enforcement to ensure safe working conditions, sniff out human trafficking, criminals using underage sex workers and other crimes that are particular to this type of work. This would be much harder if the whole industry took place underground. This part of the argument does not apply to the case of selling your body after death. Making it illegal to sell one's body after death seems more logical to me then.

humanrebar 8y ago
You can sell many body parts and fluids without dying: milk, marrow, semen, 1 kidney, pieces of liver, blood, eggs, etc. And has been pointed out by you and others, one can theoretically sell the rights to one's body parts after death, assuming the contract is enforced.

AndyMcConachie 8y ago

Organ donors don't sell their body parts. When you're dead it's kinda hard to make a profit.

Scoundreller 8y ago
You can sell the option. Or pay to their estate. The 35 year old dying in a car accident probably has a lot of people depending on them that could use the money. It could be a “free” life insurance policy.

lawn 8y ago

The problem with blood donations is it's very expensive or impossible to test if the blood is clean. Therefore they rely on self reporting by the donors. If blood instead was paid for people would be incentivized to lie, people desperate for cash wouldn't care about the consequences. For example junkies who might have all sorts of shit in their system.

Scoundreller 8y ago
Getting enough blood through voluntary donations is usually simple. Getting enough plasma or various immunoglobulins can be the difficult part. And sometimes you heavily depend on a few outlier cases, like this guy that’s estimated to have saved 2.4million through his 1000 donations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harrison_(blood_donor) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harrison_(blood_donor)
maxerickson 8y ago
Every unit of blood is tested before use. Many of the screening questions just reduce waste in the face of plenty of willing donors.
- lawn 8y ago
  Yes but it's not an exhaustive test. There are many illnesses that are very expensive to screen for and some that are basically undetectable.