Bureaucrats and Babies: Government Regulation of the Supply of Genetic Material*

CATHY BUCHANAN and ELIZABETH W. PRIOR Princeton University,

Princeton, NJ 08540 USA

One might object to the sale of genetic material on the ground that it constitutes a trade in human beings. We argue that such exchange does not constitute a moraIIy significant departure from current practice concerning the sole of other bodiIy property. Some utilitarians have argued that there is no justfication for suppliers of genetic material receiving the competitive market-clearing price for their product. They maintain that utilitarian objectives would be better advanced by distributing genetic material through a government board. We contend that competitive market exchange of genetic materid ispreferable both h u w it d m more to further individual liberty and because it is more efficient.

Some people view the idea of exchanging genetic material for money with distaste’ claiming that the sanctity of human life is violated when we think of it in terms of dollars and cents. We shall argue, on the contrary. that such exchange may enhance the lives of many and does not represent a morally significant departure from current practice concerning the sale and disposal of other bodily property

In Section I we advance the claim that people have a right to their genetic property and are entitled to profit from its sale. The theory of rights on which we base our discussion is that advocated by John Locke (in Laslett, 1960). More recently Robert Nozick (1974) has advanced a similar view.

In Section I1 we look at the utilitarian position put forward by Peter Singer and Deane Wells (1984). These authors argue that there is no ethical justification for the suppliers of genetic material to receive the marketclearing price for their product. On the contrary, they claim that, on

* We wish to thank Peter Hartley, Alan Budd, an Editor, and two anonymous referees for their help in for- mulating and clarifying the arguments in this paper.

One might say ’trade’ in genetic material, but it could be argued that marriage involves in part an exchange of genetic material for other goods and services.

utilitarian grounds, it would be preferable for suppliers to sell to a government board and receive less than the marketclearing price. We shall argue’ that the purchase and resale of genetic material by government boards at less than market-clearing prices (or controls on prices so that they are kept below marketclearing levels) should be rejected because it is an unjustifiable interference with the liberty of the individual and it is less efficient than a system which relies on competitive market exchange.

Thus, it is our view that whether one starts with a (Lockean-type) theory of rights, or with utilitarian pre-suppositions, a system which relies on competitive market exchange is to be preferred.

I The Right to Bodily Property The notion of property is a far from simple one.

To have object x as part of one’s property is to have certain rights with respect to the use or disposal of x. There are many things that may be broadly described as belonging to me, or as my property, but over whose use and disposal I have quite different entitlements. For example, if I buy a jar

’ Many of these arguments would also be applicable to an analysis of the adoption market. Lack of space here prevents us from discussing these analogies in any depth.

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1984 BUREAUCRATS AND BABIES 223

of honey from the supermarket, then I am free to do more or less whatsoever I like with it.’ If on the other hand I buy a block of land in Hawthorn, I am comparatively less free with regard to what I can do with it. I may not build a ten-story munitions factory nor may I erect an asbestos plant on it.

What might Locke have said about an individual’s right to dispose of his genetic material? According to the Lockean account of property ‘every man has a “property“ in his own ”person” ’ (Locke in Laslett, 1960, p. 305). The natural interpretation of Locke is one in which an individual’s genetic material would count as a proper part of his property (since it is part of his person). Each person has some claim over his natural assets and that claim is not possessed by other persons.

If it is admitted that I have a right to (or claim upon) my genetic material that others do not have, the onus is upon those who wish to limit that right to produce good reasons for doing so. In the absence of the production of such good reasons any interference with my utilization or disposal of the material in question must be viewed as violating my right.

In those cases in which my rights of utilization and disposal are limited, that limitation is usually justified in terms of the detrimental effects such utilization and disposal will have upon the more fundamental rights of other individuals. I am not at liberty to build an asbestos plant on my Hawthorn block because in that case my neighbours’ right to health and life is considered to take precedence over my right to make a profit via that means. On the other hand, even though my prudish neighbours may abhor the type of reading material I choose, and the thought of my reading lurid novels fills them with disgust and may even cause them significant psychological distress, that abhorence is usually considered insufficient grounds for interfering with my right to read such novels (Mill, 1971, p. 104).

I have a right to my genetic material which others do not have. To justify the interference that prohibits me from profiting from the sale of that material. it will need to be established that my so profiting constitutes some threat to some more fundamental right of another individual.

’ There are, of course, even in this case things I can- not do with it. For example, I cannot pour it over the Gallery’s newly acquired Rothko.

An entitlement to profit from the sale of my genetic material can, of course, make others (actual or potential customers) worse off, if my material is in great demand. My ability to profit clearly does have an effect on my customers, but not so as to interfere with any of their fundamental rights. The fall in welfare they may suffer as a result of having to pay a high price does not affect their rights to life or liberty. We think most would agree that the opportunity of raising a child of one’s preferred genetic make-up is not a fundamental right.

A number of objections could be made at this point. These may be roughly divided into two groups. The first group consists of objections of a paternalistic nature - the vendor of genetic material should be protected from a situation in which it is possible for him or her to jeopardize health and/or life in return for financial compensation. The second group of objections centres on the fact that there are individuals other than buyers and sellers whom exchange in human reproductive material will affect: namely, those persons who develop out of the purchased genetic material.

Paternalktic Objections Sperm is an easily replenished bodily tissue and

can be procured with neither pain nor danger. It is, therefore, difficult to think of any paternalistic justification for prohibiting its sale.

From a medical point of view the major difference between collecting sperm and collecting ova is that the latter involves a surgical procedure (where some danger may arise from the administration of a general anaesthetic to the patient) whilst the former does not. It could be argued here that prohibition of the sale of ova can be justified on the paternalistic ground that an individual should not be permitted to place her life or health in jeopardy in exchange for financial reward.

Similarly it has been argued that blood sellers may trade too often in their bodily fluids, and thus put their health at risk. However, the hazards such traders incur is in no important way different from those faced by the sole proprietor of a dangerous business, such as pearl diving or opal mining. It can be argued that any employed individual, especially one working in hazardous conditions, is exploiting his bodily property for the sake of income. It is generally accepted that people have the right to pursue gainful employment which is dangerous to themselves, provided it does not

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compromise the safety of others without their consent.

Finally, it should be noted that society already allows individuals to undergo elective surgery. Many of these operations are for purely cosmetic purposes. Insofar as they are lengthy, they involve anaesthetic risk. One might argue that if cosmetic plastic surgery is permissible, then ova donation should also be permissible.

Another possible paternalistic objection to the sale of ova is that a woman has but a finite supply of ova whilst a man can (and does) continually replenish his supply of sperm. Although a woman’s supply of ova is finite, at approximately 100 OOO, it is far greater than the number of pregnancies that even the most enthusiastic is likely to wish for. She could give away a great many ova and still possess far more than she is ever likely to use.‘

Human vs. Non-Human Genetic Material L.et us now consider the second type of objection:

the objection that human reproductive material should not be sold or even given away because it is the material from which human beings are constructed. This is, we think, at the core of many people’s opposition to a market in genetic material.

All (or at least most of us) are repelled by the institution of slavery. (Certainly slavery is explicitly rejected by Lmke (in Laslett, 1960, p. 301-2) ). It may be argued here that to allow a trade in human genetic material would be to allow for the reintroduction of slavery. Our reply, however, is that individuals (or couples) who purchase genetic material would stand to the children who grew out of that genetic material, in the very same legal relationship that natural parents stand to their children. As such, the former children could not be exploited in ways additional to the ways that natural parents may exploit their children. It would, for example, be illegal in both cases to set up factories and utilize the children as slave labour.

A variation on the above argument is the claim that even if the child’s legal rights in both cases were the same, we might expect children who develop from purchased genetic material to be less well-

‘ Furthermore. s ina society is prepared to countenance voluntary female sterilization it cannot also consistently argue that a woman not be allowed to sell her ova because she only has a limited supply o f them. The woman who sells all her ova puts herself in a similar position, from a reproductive point of view, as the one who has herself sterilized. Neither will then be able to conceive a child in the standard way.

treated by their parents than those naturally born to their biological parent for the reason that the former lack the genetic relationship to their social parents which the latter possess. Whether or not this is so is of course an empirical

question. It is. however, one which at the present time we have no reason to answer in the affirmative. Adopted children stand in the same genetic (non-)relationship to their parents as children who developed from purchased genetic material stand to theirs. There is at present no evidence that adoptive parents treat their children any worse than natural parents do. Indeed, we might expect that the opposite would be the case for adoptive parents are always volunteers, whilst natural parents are sometimes conscripts.)

The selling of genetic material does no physical or psychological harm to any person at the time of the sale. However, it may be argued here that if such material develops into a person, that person may suffer psychological damage as a result of the knowledge that he was originally purchased.

Does the possibility of such future psychological distress constitute sufficient basis for claiming that the sale of human genetic material is morally impermissible? We think not. After all, human beings are notoriously adept at being unhappy. That a child who grows from purchased genetic material may suffer some distress is, in our view, insufficient reason on this ground for disallowing the exchange of genetic material for money. If it were to be established that persons who grew from purchased genetic material suffered crippling psychological pathologies as a result of their knowledge of their origins. then the situation would obviously call for reassessment. But in t.he absence of such evidence there is insufficient ground for disallowing a trade in such material.

Finally, if one accepts that the possibility of future distress is sufficient reason for prohibiting the sale of genetic material, consistency demands that one also advocate the licensing of natural

’ According to a study by Gill (1970). only 0.4 per cent of abused children were abused by adoptive parents. Since at least 2 per cent of the children in the United States are adopted that means the rate of abuse by biological parents is five times that of adoptive parents. I t might be claim- ed, of course. that current restrictions on adoption have been successful at screening out unsuitable parents and therefore similar restrictions ought to be applied to the purchase of potential children. Data on the treatment of natural versus adopted children in a society without limita- tions on eligibility for adoption would be needed to set- tle this question.

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parents. Natural parents sometimes treat their children badly or do things which cause their children distress. If parents of children who grew from purchased material are to be screened on these grounds, natural parents should be as well. We believe that most people would find such screening of natural parents unacceptable.

Parallels with Abortion One may also argue that it is morally permissible

to sell human genetic material using an argument analagous to one frequently advanced to show the moral permissibility of abortion. Such an argument will clearly only be persuasive to those who also accept that argument in favour of abortion.

An argument frequently advanced by pro- abortionists is that only persons have a serious right to life and since the foetus is not a person, it is permissible to abort it. Such pro-abortionists typically differentiate being a person from being a human being. To be a human being is to belong to a particular species, homo sopiens, and have the genetic make-up criterial of that species. The notion of being a human being is a purely biological one.

The concept of a person, on the other hand, is a moral concept, where persons are seen as having (among other things) a serious right to life.

Tooley (1972, p. 44) argues that An organism possesses a serious right to life only if it possesses the concept of self as a continuing subject of experience and other mental states, and believes that it is itself such a continuing entity.

On the ground that the foetus possesses no concept of self (i.e. it is not a person), Tooley arpes that is is permissible to abort the foetus.

Suppose we accept for the moment Tooley’s argument that the foetus is not a person. Can we draw from this any conclusions concerning the moral permissibility of buying and selling foetuses?‘

‘ It is certainly not ihe case that we can here use Tooley’s argument in the following manner. (1) Abortion is permissible because the foetus is not a person. (2) If it is permissible to kill something. it is also permissi- ble to do to it anything ‘less serious’ than killing it. (3) Selling a foetus is less serious than killing it. (4)The selling of a foetus is morally permissible. As Tooley himself points out. it may not be wrong to painlessly kill a new-born kitten but it would be wrong to torture for an hour that same kitten (1972, p. 40).

Tooley’s position is one in which an individual‘s rights flow from or are founded upon its physical and psychological capacities. The sold foetus experiences neither physical nor psychological distress of any kind at the time of its sale. When a sold foetus becomes a child, we have already argued that society does (and has a right to) protect it from abuse by parents whether natural or otherwise. We see no reason why extra restrictions need be placed upon those parents who have children not genetically their own.

Finally, if there were good reason to suppose, contra Tooley, that the late-term foetus does possess an appropriate concept of self, then that might provide a good reason for disallowing both the sale and abortion of such foetuses. But even if some case could be made for the thesis that the late-term foetus possesses such a concept of self, it is hard to see that any similar case could be made for very young foetuses (or embryoes) where no, or little, functional differentiation has yet occurred. Such an embryo consists of an undifferentiated cell mass, ergo it possesses not even the rudiments of a central nervous system. And so it will not possess any concepts at all, let alone an appropriate concept of self.

II Utilitarianism and Efficiency We have argued that to allow the exchange of

genetic material for money would not constitute a violation of any individual’s rights. We shall now go on to consider how a utilitarian would view this issue. Utilitarianism is (roughly) the thesis that in any situation the morally correct action is that action which maximizes utility.’ Needless to say, there are many varieties of utilitarianism: act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, etc. The utilitarian position we shall examine is that put forward by Singer and Wells (1984). Singer and Wells consider the issue under discussion, and argue that the distribution of genetic material should be controlled by a government board.

There is nothing in The Revolution in Reproduction to suggest that Singer and Wells do not think that an individual has some claim not to be interfered with. Though they never actually discuss the question of whether it would be ethically permissable for a doctor treating a woman in the in vitro fertilization programme to take away her extra eggs without her permission, and allocate

’ Of course, one needs to distinguish between maximiz- ing cardinal and ordinal utility, and to discuss the issue of interpersonal comparison of utility.

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them to some other women, the whole drift of what they say indicates that they would consider this unacceptable. Therefore, they accord the individual some right to his genetic material.

Singer and Wells could argue that their according an individual a right to non-interference of the kind just described is not a fundamental right, but rather one accorded to individuals on the utilitarian ground that failure to ascribe such a right would produce vast quantities of misery. However they do explicitly say that we should not allow individuals to profit from the sale of their genetic material. And their argument to this conclusion is a utilitarian one.

How is such a position to be substantiated? Singer and Wells do not directly address this question. However, given what Singer says in an earlier book, Practical Ethics (1979) it is easy enough to extrapolate. He writes (p. 36):

When we pay people high salaries for programming computers and low salaries for cleaning offices we are, in effect, paying people for something largely determined before they are born and almost wholly determined before they reach an age at which they are responsible for their actions. From the point of view of justice and utility there is something wrong here. If Singer thinks that neither the ideals of justice

nor utility are served by, as he describes it, ‘paying people for having a high I.Q.’, then he will also think that it is permissible to arrange things so as to prevent individuals who possess sought-after genetic material profiting from the sale of that material.

In what way, we may ask, is allowing an individual to profit from the sale of his genetic material a perpetration of injustice? A classical liberal would argue that it will only be unjust if the selling of the material in question infringes upon the fundamental rights of other individuals. This we have already argued is not the case.

If we allow individuals to profit from the sale of their genetic material, then individuals with sought-after genetic material will do better out of that market than will others. But this, by itself, is insufficient reason for disallowing individuals to engage in and profit from such trade. Individuals will be differentially benefited by allowing all sorts of trade. If one is concerned,about the distribution of welfare it is surely the overall distribution of welfare, and not just the changes in welfare resulting from particular types of exchanges, that is of interest. (These issues are discussed further

in the final section of the paper.) Let us now turn our attention to the argument

concerning utility. In Practical Ethics. Singer argues that given the evidence for genetic determination of I.Q., to pay people more for ’upper class’ jobs i s a wasteful use of resources, since we are rewarding people for what they would do anyway.

Suppose we can distinguish between an individual’s natural assets (that is, valuable attributes which cannot be altered by the actions of any individual) and acquired or produced assets. Natural assets have the property of being in fiied supply. A person can increase the returns to, for example, the natural asset of musical potential through training, but he cannot increase his musical potential. Similarly, a person cannot increase the potential supply of his genetic material. that is, his supply of sperm or ova, since the potential supply of one’s genetic material is fied. Perhaps even more to the point, since the quality of an individual’s genetic material is something determined before he was born (and for which he can take no credit), then Singer and Wells could argue it is a wasteful use of resources to pay him a price that accords with the quality of that material. For so long as he is paid only a little bit more than the costs to him of actually supplying the genetic material (where we include in the cost compensation for the individual‘s time, effort. pain suffered, etc.), we should get an adequate amount supplied. The sperm or ova donor has genetic material in excess of his own reproductive requirements and nothing he does will substantially increase or diminish the quality or quantity of that supply. Society may as well pay him a little bit for it (above his costs), rather than the market price.

There are several problems with this argument. First, even if the supply of genetic material would not vary in either quantity or quality with increases in price above some minimum (so my supply becomes inelastic) it does not follow that payments above that minimum are wasteful. By assumption, such payments can only alter the distribution of income between buyers and sellers and hence have no implications whatsoever for the efficiency of resource allocation. The ‘extra’ payments might be unjust but they cannot be wasteful.

Second. even if the available supply is not diminished through regulation, it may not be allocated first to those who value it most. Since a non-market mechanism does not provide a means by which consumers can easily signal marginal value to suppliers, inefficiency in the allocation of the available supply seems most probable. Indeed,

1984 BUREAUCRATS AND BABIES 221

one might go further and argue that a non-market allocative mechanism will respond to political and other pressures ensuring available supply is not allocated to maximize its value to consumers.

Third, if the regulated price of genetic material is not accurately calculated to include payments for the variable contributions to its production (such as costs of time, abstinence, suffering and so on) then these regulations will result in a reduction in supply. We should note that calculating the variable costs of providing genetic material will not be trivial. Many, if not all, of these costs will vary from one individual to another and cannot, even in principle be easily discerned from behavioural evidence. Only the individual suppliers of genetic material will have the special information required to calculate how much they will have to be paid in order to make it worth their while to engage in this trade. Failure to make these calculations accurately will result in a diminution in supply.

Possible Analogies Blood

One trade in bodily property which is established and accepted in many countries involves the donation or purchase of blood. The sale of blood is permitted in the United States but not in the United Kingdom or Australia. Perhaps the prevention of a market in blood has brought some efficiency gains to offset losses from reduced supply.

It has been argued that paying a fee for blood encourages the wrong sort of person to contribute. The quality of blood varies according to the health of the donor, hepatitis being of particular concern. Kenneth h o w (in Coben eta/.. 1981, p. 149) notes that the incidence of post-transfusion hepatitjs is far lower in those countries where blood is obtained through a voluntary System.'

An important means of determining the quality of blood is to question potential donors about their health histories. If these candidates lie about diseases they have had, unsuitable blood may be obtained. The dangers of this occurring appear to be greater in the commercial than in the voluntary system. As Arrow points out @. SO):

' Post-transfusion hepatitis is less than I per cent in the UK where all blood is obtained through a voluntary system. The incidence is 3-4 per cent in the US where a mixed commercial/voluntary system operates, and it is 18-25 per cent in Japan where almost all blood is obtain- ed commercially (Arrow, 1981, p. 19).

The supplying of truthful information is an example of an externality, if you like, but that classification does not really help us in deciding how truth is to be obtained. A voluntary donor system is from this point of view self-enforcing. Anyone whose motive for giving is to help others, but who suffers from hepatitis and is aware of the implications of this, will of course refrain from giving. On the other hand, a commercial blood donor, especially one driven by poverty, has every incentive to conceal the truth.

Although Arrow suggests that a voluntary blood collection system may have some advantages over commercial collection, he does not advocate prohibiting the sale of blood. Certain individuals with rare blood types may be unable to procure sufficient supplies unless they are permitted to pay for it. More generally. if a voluntary system (such as that operating in the United States) is unable to supply quantities of blood sufficient to meet demand, then a commercial system will be required (Singer and Wells, 1984, Chap. 111).

Moreover, mechanisms can be used to help overcome information problems in a market system. For example, some firms in the United States Middle West invest in a group of reliable blood donors and pay them higher rates (and the firms charge higher rates to their customers) for blood of a reliable quality (Kessel, 1974). This is just a particular example of the general principle that reputations can often be used to overcome information problems in markets.'

It should also be noted that for many operations, individuals themselves are able to donate their own blood (autologous donation) some time prior to the operation and this is the most satisfactory arrangement that can be imagined. Yet there is some evidence that the voluntary donation system has discouraged the evolution of this sort of mechanism.'*

' It is also important to note that even the so-called voluntary system of blood collection often is not strictly voluntary. For example, some labourers in Australia may by law obtain up to eight hours paid leave each year for the purpose of donating blood. Thus, there will be a diminution in the incentive of such donors to be honest about their health histories, since to admit that one has undesirable blood is to lose the opportunity of taking eight hours off work.

'* This point was made by R . H. Wallace at the Con- ference on Distributive Justice and the Australian Medical System (Monash University, 25 November 1983).

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In conclusion. a system that is totally voluntary, in the sense that the donors receive no compensation, may be the best of all systems from the point of view of obtaining truthful information about the past health of the donor. However, evidence suggests that such a system-a system that relies solely on human altruism - cannot fully meet the demand for blood.

Let us now look at the exchange of genetic material. To begin with, the fact that all sperm banks with which we are familiar pay a fat to donors suggests that reliance on human altruism cannot furnish quantities sufficient to meet demand. The fee donors currently receive is euphemistically tagged a ‘small contribution toward the covering of expenses’.

By analogy with the discussion of blood donation, one might argue that payment to potential donors would give them an incentive to overstate the quality of their genetic material in order to increase demand for their product. Our reply is that even in the case in which no fee at all is paid we will not have any assurance that a donor of sperm or ova is acting for purely altruistic motives. Contrary to the case of blood donation, the donation of genetic material could supply benefits to the donor, if that donor derives utility from the expectation that his genes will be represented more widely in the population. Further. we can think of no reason why such a desire should be more prevalent among low, as opposed to high, income donors, contrary to the case of disease in blood.” Hence, we see little if any role for low prices as a means of encouraging truthful statements on the part of donors. On the other hand, there is little doubt that a system which pays less than marketclearing prices to suppliers and charges less than market-clearing prices to consumers will be incapable of meeting demand.

The other side of the coin is that under the present small-fee system, donors who are modest, or whose time is very valuable, are discouraged from contributing. Yet infertile couples of a busy and modest nature may wish to procure the very genetic material which the present system discourages from being made available.” The problem is that a fee which is adequate to elicit a contribution from one person may not be sufficient

” Some might even say that the opposite is the case. ” People of a busy and modest nature may prefer the

genetic material of other individuals of similar nature, since they may expect it to produce children more like t hemselva.

to compensate another. If fees were not fixed (as they now are), then potential recipients would have a far better range of sperm or ova types from which to choose.

Finally, again by analogy with the case of blood donation, we believe that a competitive market for genetic material would be characterized by firms which have a strong incentive to invest in a group of reliable donors. Recent legal cases, in which a central issue has been the paternity of a particular individual. have demonstrated that it is now poss’bk to disccrn Paternity (and genetic maternity) to a reasonable degree of certainty (Terasaki, 1978). Hence. it would seem that f m s would have sufficient incentives to invest in reputations as reliable suppliers.

Non-monetary exchanges There are other transactions between individuals

which are not traditionally mediated by the transfer of money. It has been argued that such restrictions or monetary exchanges may be favoured in part because they produce a more efficient allocation of resources. The same arguments do not seem to apply to a prohibition on the exchange of genetic material for money.

The classic discussion of non-monetary exchange is contained in Coase (1937). He argues that the absence of a market for intra-firm transactions may result in some inefficiencies in so far as resources are not valued at their opportunity cost. On the other hand, there may be offsetting savings if the firm is able to avoid the costs of writing and enforcing complicated contracts in order to, for example, safeguard proprietary knowledge or provide appropriate incentives for employees to invest in firm-specific skills. Similarly, husbands and wives often engage in trades which are not mediated by money. At least part of the explanation might be the extraordinary costs involved in writing and enforcing efficient explicit contracts in this case.

Let us now look very briefly at a particular case that would be seen by many as similar in important ways to the case of selling genetic material. This is the case of selling sexual favours.

While some might argue that both prostitution and the sale of genetic material should be illegal because both are ’immoral’, we believe the illegality of prostitution might have a more pragmatic basis. There arc significant externalities when sexual favours can legally be offered for monetary payment. It may be argued that such payments

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reduce transactions costs and so make the activity more prevalent. There are several grounds for believing prostitution could impose significant external costs on third parties. First, it may be argued that prostitution may lead to an increase in the spread of venereal disease. Second, allowing more prostitution may lead to greater marital instability. Such instability will impose externalities on others, if children of divorced parents suffer psychological damage during the dissolution, or single parents are less capable of raising children.

There seem to be few externalities concerning the sale of genetic material which are similar to the externalities involved in the sale of sexual favours. The sale of genetic material will not result in children being produced who are unwanted by their parents. On the contrary, if parents pay for the material, we have more assurance that the parents want the resulting child than we can when people become parents naturally.

There is also no reason to presume that the sale of genetic material will contribute to greater marital instability. Rather, since the principle recipients will doubtless be couples who could not have children, and since couples without children are more likely to divorce than couples with children the sale of genetic material is likely to contribute to greater rather than less marital stability” (Becker et al., 1977).

Finally, we should note that, even if non- monetary exchange were desirable, this does not imply that there should be government regulation. As noted above, alternative institutions like the f m itself, or marriage or friendship, often develop to internalize externalities or economize on information costs.

III Equity Considerations

Another objection which could be raised at this point is that poor people who are infertile should, if they live in an affluent society, be provided with genetic material by that society. After all, we have acknowledged that some people who succeed in acquiring genetic material under a system of government regulation may get it at a price lower than the market price. It may be asserted that it is unfair that poor infertile couples should be denied access to genetic material.

We do not think that an entitlement to progeny

” However, a referee has suggested that the advent of children may reduce marital happiness, even if the part- ners are less likely to divorce.

is a fundamental entitlement of man, nor that society has an obligation to organize itself so that it can supply such material to any persons seeking it. However, even if we were to accept that poor infertile people have some claim on the genetic resources of an affluent society, there is a way of supplying them without setting up a regulatory board. Our suggestion is that poor people who are certified infertile could be provided with sperm and ova vouchers.“ By this mechanism, these individuals will be able to purchase the genetic material from which they would like their offspring to be made and will not have to rely on the generosity of individuals to make that material available. In addition, it would seem to be more equitable to call upon the taxpayer to provide the subsidy to the infertile poor than to ’tax’ the suppliers of the genetic material by paying them a price less than the value of the product being supplied.

Vouchers could also be used to handle the objection that poor people could only buy poor quality genetic material. In fact, a voucher system could provide advantages to poor people which the natural system of reproduction often denies them. Vouchers could be used to provide poor people with the means of purchasing genetic material from individuals (with desirable and/or rare genetic traits) whom they could never hope to marry.”

Some people might object that individuals genetically wellcndowed would be made wealthy by a free market in genetic material. There seems to us to be no more reason to be concerned about this than inequalities arising for other reasons. If one is concerned about inequality of wealth, surely this can be most efficiently altered by using the tax system. The regulation of particular markets may

’‘ These have been proposed as a means of providing education and housing for the poor. See for example, Friedman (1962, Chap. 6) or Priorities Revjew Staff (1975).

’’ A referee has noted that people who are well- endowed with a particular characteristic may be less in- clined to purchase genetic material which is likely to have the same characteristics well represented when they want to mix the purchased material with their own endowment. This may tend to produce an evening of levels of at least some characteristics over time, which in turn would have implications for income distribution. On the other hand, if those with high incomes also possess genetic material more in demand, the establishment of a free market in genetic material accompanied by vouchers for the p o o r might accentuate inequality in the current distribution of income.

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achieve a given redistribution at much greater cost than more efficient taxes, and in any case will have less predictable consequences on the distribution of wealth.

I V Conclusion We have argued that the supply of genetic

materid is not so different from the supply of other commodities as it may appear to beprima facie. We have also argued that it is not the case that the adoption of either a rights-based theory or a utilitarian one commits one to rejecting the exchange of genetic material for money as ethically unacceptable.

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Becker, G . S. , Landes, E. M. and Michael, R. T. (1977). ‘An Economic Analyns of Mantal Instabuty’, Journal of Political Economy, 85. 1141-87.

Caves, R. E. (1982), Multinational Enterprise and Economic AMIYSLS, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

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