[Avodah] Is there any issur here al pi halacha? - New York man pleads guilty to selling Israeli human organs

hankman hankman at bell.net
Sun Oct 30 07:47:17 PDT 2011


New York man pleads guilty to selling Israeli human organs
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum tells federal court that he brokered three illegal kidney transplants for New Jersey-based customers in exchange for payments of $120,000 or more.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/new-york-man-pleads-guilty-to-selling-israeli-human-organs-1.392462 
Qouting from the article:
His attorneys, Ronald Kleinberg and Richard Finkel, said in a statement that their client had performed a life-saving service for desperately ill people who had been languishing on official transplant waiting lists. ....
"In fact, because of the transplants and for the first time in many years, the recipients are no longer burdened by the medical and substantial health dangers associated with dialysis and kidney failure." ....
The lawyers added that Rosenbaum had never solicited clients, but that recipients had sought him out, and that the donors he arranged to give up kidneys were fully aware of what they were doing. The money involved, they argued, was for expenses associated with the procedures, which they claim were performed in prestigious American hospitals by experienced surgeons and transplant experts.
My comments:
I would ask whether there is any issur here al pi halacha?
I understand that the modern western world perceives this as a major crime of the rich preying on the poor for the sale of bodily parts, the powerful preying on the weak and powerless, and the greed of the broker who organizes the deal. The harvesting of the organ is often pictured as occurring in unsanitary, makeshift ORs endangering the poor donor whose consent is sometimes questionable, uninformed or totally lacking.
If the reality of these cases is not as the popular media chooses to portray, and are safe, sanitary and with full consent of the donor, would halacha allow such a procedure (dina demalchusa excepted [if it applies here]}. Presumably, you are saving someone’s life, providing significant funds to a poor person who desperately needs it, probably jumping a Jew in the waiting line ahead of many non-Jews to save his life first ( this may also include jumping him ahead of other Jews as well? Is this a problem?). The main down side I can see under these assumed circumstances is whether one is permitted to risk one’s life to save another (one might consider the imminence of the risk to life and in fact if there is any at all in some cases) which is an issue well elaborated upon in the halachic literature. What would your attitude be towards this frum Brooklyn man who did this knowing he was involved in actions deemed illegal by the State. (I am of course giving him the benefit of the doubt that his lawyer’s defenses (rationales – as they are probably not valid legal defenses) are in fact true and that greed was not the motivator until shown otherwise – but even if greed was the motivator, does that change anything?).
Kol Tuv
Chaim Manaster
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