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Op-Ed: In Defense of the Kidney Salesman

by Anonymous Kidney Donor

It was with great sadness that I read the case of Levy Izhak Rosenbaum and his recent guilty plea in a federal court to having brokered three [illegal] kidney transplants in exchange for payment of money. The slew of negative comments on the news websites made him seem like he is a second coming of Levy Aron. I can’t comment on the character of Mr. Rosenbaum, for I’ve never met the man. Still, I’d like to warn all of you; not so fast!

On February 25, 1990, Terri Schiavo collapsed in her Florida home in full cardiac arrest. She suffered massive brain damage due to lack of oxygen and, after two and a half months in a coma, her diagnosis was elevated to vegetative state. In 1998 Schiavo’s husband, Michael (who had by then forged a new relationship…), petitioned the court to remove her feeding tube. He was opposed by Terri’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, who argued that she was worth saving even though she didn’t have the capacity to indicate so herself due to her deteriorated state. On February 25, 2005, a judge ordered the removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. Several appeals and federal government interventions followed, including U.S. President George W. Bush returning to Washington D.C. to sign legislation designed to keep her alive. After all attempts at appeals upheld the original decision to remove the feeding tube, staff at the hospice facility where Terri was being cared for disconnected the feeding tube on March 18, 2005 and she died on March 31.

104,748 U.S. patients are currently waiting for an organ transplant; more than 4,000 new patients are added to the waiting list each month. Every day, 13 people die while waiting for a kidney transplant. Because of the lack of available donors in this country, 4,573 kidney failure patients died in 2008 while waiting for life-saving organ transplants. Is it unfathomable that if consenting adults are allowed to agree to exchange one of their kidneys for payment, then there would be no existence of American people dying on a kidney waiting list? Is it in the spirit of ‘the land of the free’ to deprive people (adults) of engaging in their own decision making? We can export jobs of Americans to China, yet importing kidneys of [consenting adult] foreigners to America TO SAVE LIVES is a crime??!!

I would argue that there is little difference between Terri Schiavo and patients with kidney disease. Terri Schiavo was deprived by the government of food, and kidney disease patients are being deprived by the government of viable kidney transplant options. Food and a healthy kidney (a single kidney is more than enough to power the body, assuming that the hospital has qualified the potential donor as physically eligible to donate) are both vital to the life of a human being. The dissimilarity is that kidney patients are NOT vegetables, and a new kidney can easily restore them to a normal life, yet the government is depriving them! More so, being that they are NOT in a comatose state, they can easily indicate as to whether they want to be given a new lease on life through the purchase of a kidney.

I am not a rov and cannot say what is Daas Torah, but (having done lots of research on it as I’ve myself donated a kidney altruistically to a stranger through a wonderful organization called Renewal) I’ve yet to meet a rov who forbids kidney donation; on the contrary, they usually praise it. If so, can it be that it should be halachically forbidden merely for the capitalist element of it (the exchange of money)?

Before jumping on the train of blasting Mr. Rosenbaum merely because it doesn’t feeeeeeeeel right, perhaps we should ponder the ethics of closing avenues of salvation to the myriads suffering with this terrible disease. More importantly, the government should rethink their policies on this matter. Something tells me if a suffering US Senator had to wait in line like everybody else [for a cadaver kidney], the avenue of living donors who are financially compensated would hastily be made legal.

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38 Comments

  • shlomo

    i ask many rabays from different hugim, and they don’t have answer. did you see ever how ZAKA work ?every drop going with body to funeral if for ex. fly sit on body, and after on a wall, so on wall it little point from FLY LEGs, so zaka take it all even that many hours work and put in kever. and you want arrive w/o kidney????
    2. people go to some KASHMIR stole child and kill for transplant? did you want for YOURS child?
    yes it very sad, but much more people die from drugs and what you do?and from alcohol -same question???
    and many many example and q . that we haven’t answer
    but this avera it like IMHO stole you brother.

  • Milhouse

    Suppose Mr Rosenbaum had broken shabbos in order to save someone’s life. Everyone would be praising him and calling him a tzadik. If someone were so ignorant and insensitive as to call him a mechelel shabbos, and to suggest that he be punished for it, then we would all condemn that person. Nor would anything change if Mr Rosenbaum were a well-paid doctor rather than a volunteer; we would still say that he’s doing a wonderful thing by saving lives, and if it means breaking Shabbos then so be it.

    How then can anyone have the CHUTZPAH to complain that he broke some stupid USA law? Is that not open rebellion against Hashem? Doesn’t it show that you value Congress’s laws more than Hashem’s laws? How can someone have a bad word to say about Mr Rosenbaum, and yet call himself a good Jew?

  • Milhouse

    #1 you are ignorant.

    1. There is NO INYAN to bury a working organ that can help another person. Everything you put in the kever is going to rot anyway. I don’t know which “rabays from different hugim” you asked, but there is no competent rov in the world who does not agree that transplanting a kidney to a living recipient (“choleh lefoneinu”) is 100% permitted. The only question is whether donation should be MANDATORY (because of “lo saamod”), and all poskim agree that it is not.

    2. What are you talking about? There is no evidence that anybody has ever been killed for their kidneys, whether in Kashmir or anywhere else? And what has any of this to do with Mr Rosenbaum, who as far as I know did not deal in cadaveric organs?

  • Jewish dude

    This is sad and put us Jews in a bad light. people are desperate because so few donors are available. Please do not judge this needs Rabbinical intervention now. Before it gets out of control.

  • reread the indictment

    People, you dont understand why he was arrested and indicted; Mr. Rosenbaum wasnt a do-gooder. he was a businessman! he bought and sold a product illegally and was caught.

  • no tzaddik

    This man benefitted ILLEGALLY on other peoples tzar. He wasnt a person that was out to help anyone. He was a businessman out to make money and invest these illgotten proceeds into other legal ventures. He has to return the realestate he was caught to have bought from his ill gotten gains.

  • Milhouse

    #4 What rabbinical intervention do you want? That the rabbis should tell the prosecutors not to enforce their law? Why would they listen? These prosecutors are not exactly believing Jews! Should the rabbis tell people to refrain from doing a mitzvah because of the danger?! What kind of message is that? If someone is willing to assume the risk in order to do a mitzvah we must encourage them. The only intervention I can think of is to tell the naysayers to be quiet and to give those arrested moral support. Let them know that “ashrecho shenitpasto al divrei torah”, as Popos ben Yehuda said to that other notorious criminal, Rabbi Akiva.

  • Grateful

    Please remember too many people are waiting for a kidney transplant. A lot of them are Yidishe people and very few kidneys are available for a transplant.
    Lots of people are waiting and dying while on a waiting list. If a family member of yours would have been Chas Vesholom in his s predicament you would have thought differently about this man’s work. A father of eleven children got a transplant from this Tzadik and is raising his family now thanks to him. To criticize is always easy.

  • to #5 and #6

    What if there was a man that illegally made 3 false passports to help Jews escape communist Russia or Nazi Europe and charged for the service. Would you say, hay, he may have done a good deed but it was illegal so lock him up and throw away the keys?

    You also have to realize, when people do things that they know to be illegal, they charge extra for the service, because they need the extra incentive knowing that what they are doing can land them potentially in jail, hence drug dealers charge extra (I’m not G-d forbid comparing him to a drug dealer, I admire that he saved 3 lives, I just mean to explain why he would charge extra for the service). Also, who says he’s even greedy, he only got $360,000 for it, not millions and to raise a frum family in the tri-state cost a fortune. It may have even taken him thousands of hours of coordination to pull the 3 transplants through.

    Last point; would you want to see him led to jail if one of the 3 people he saved was your father?

  • Milhouse

    #10, the writers of #5 and #6 are obviously not Lubavitchers. They’re probably “Modern Orthodox”, Americans of the Mosaic faith rather than Jews. They would have thrown Reb Mendel in prison themselves! And they would have been there to help tear Rabbi Akiva’s flesh apart.

  • shlomo

    it only look like lake big problem. look it medical statistics, it open to publication, and you can find much mo reason for death , that you can really help, but sure it easily put comment on PC and feel that you good man.
    milhouse it simple! you can find in 10 minute Jewish man that need you kidney- so give it ! nobody don’t give it for help. pure people, that desperadly need money, except one stupid Chinese guy , that change kidney to iPhone, so help to this people before they need sale organs
    and this thadick need to be in heal.
    strange that FBI not come in community council in CH

  • How di he do it?

    Question: How did he negotiate with a desperate person?

    Please I need a kidney I don’t have $100.000
    Ok $80,000 ask your family.
    Please they are poor we have no money I am dieing.
    Sorry go on the list. I only deal with wealthy people.

  • To #10 and the author

    And if these 3 people couldn’t afford to buy a kidney, would he have worked so hard to help them? he’s slime.

  • Rabbi Chaim

    I only have one question about this man.
    Was he a righteous man or the most righteous man?

  • author

    I think many people are missing the point of my article. It is very easy to speculate on a person that you don’t know and to believe media’s reporting whose job is to sensationalize non stories into stories. I don’t know Rosenbaum so I didn’t attempt to give an opinion on his character, and even if I did know him, it isn’t the point.

    The point is, why is it illegal to begin with? Of course he violated a law, but what if the law itself is immoral? Shouldn’t that matter? And even when people to illegal acts, not all illegal acts are crimes. For example; going 10 MPH over the speed limit is illegal but not a crime. It subjects violators to fines. Why is he subject to prison time? Had he harmed anyone? To the contrary. Is there a need to ‘make from him an example’ to make sure it doesn’t become widely abused? Something tells me that there isn’t lots of people that want to be in the kidney brokerage business regardless. So let’s just place ourselves in his shoes for a moment and think was his acts truly monstrous? Is he really the type of person you would label as ‘a criminal that the public needs protection from’?

    The reason I mentioned that I personally have donated altruistically was to demonstrate that I get the importance of altruism, (I believe I earned the right to claim that) yet I would have no problem being the next door neighbor of a kidney broker (so long as he is a decent neighbor!) Why should it bother the feds? Have they nothing better to do with their law enforcement resources?

  • A Donor

    He did NOTHING wrong. The stupid American law that does not allow an adult to sell his kidney is just that, STUPID! It is a safe procedure (I know, I donated my kidney to a family member)that will save the life of another. Kol Hakavod to him and I wish him luck! BTW there is no reason why he and his family should not benefit from his taking the time and energy to arrange these transplants.

  • Holy cow, cut the guy some slack

    This disgusts me to a sickening state.
    NOBODY that has commented on this post knows Mr. Rosenbaum or the donors or the recipients. So how the heck can you come to such conclusions. Can we at least put him on trial before we put him away for life.

    Did it occur to anyone that the number the media used is probably the largest number they could justify using. Meaning maybe it includes all expenses. I don’t know if it does but I don’t know that it doesn’t.

    Innocent until proven guilty and even then he is a saint.

    and to number 15 the answer is the most righteous man.

  • Milhouse

    So what if he did make money? Maybe even lots of money? How does that change anything? Everybody involved in the process of transplants makes good money, except the donor and broker! Is that fair? Why shouldn’t they make money too? What RIGHT does Congress have to prevent them from making money?

  • Ch resident

    What do you think would happen if Al Sharpton was found to have brokered several kidneys, do you think he would be led off by the feds like this guy? Yeh right!

    I think that because for the most part the Jewish community are decent people not a hazard to the public, they feel that they need to have affirmative action in prison to make Jews well represented in jail, and thus they CRIMINALLY try Jews for the types of things that at most would be subject to a civil suit when committed by others or a slap on the wrist. We are in a deep golus.

  • Not impressed.

    When you offer some desperate poverty stricken person $10,000 and then flip the kidney over for $120,000 – yes, that in obscene.

    I agree – people SHOULD be allowed to sell their organs — but then there has to be some sort of regulation like with everything else on the marketplace….

    This guy was/is chillul Hashem.

    And you’re right – he only dealt in kidneys for wealthy people….

  • just sayin

    Making obscene profits doesn’t make one a criminal. It may make someone a shvantz at worst but when an adult signs the dotted line…

  • Milhouse

    #21, who the hell are you to say what is a fair price? Do you tell the doctors also what to charge? And since when is everything in the marketplace regulated? This is America, not Russia. Where do you or the government get the right to tell a willing seller and a willing buyer that they can’t do business on whatever terms suit them?

  • Milhouse

    What difference does it make if the people he saved were wealthy? Are their lives worth less?!

  • WHO IS THE CRIMINAL?

    SO THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A CRIME, BECAUSE THE STUPID AMERICAN GOVRNMENT SAYS SO. HOW COME THE WONDERFUL AMERICA DOESN’T SEE ANYTHING WRONG WITH OVER A THOUSAND MURDERS (WHO WOULD GLADLY BOMB AMERICA, GIVEN THE CHANCE) BEING FREED TO ROAM AND MURDER SOME MORE HEAVEN FORBID. WHEN THIS BECOMES A CRIME WE CAN THEN CONSIDER THE SAVING OF A PERSONS LIFE – AT ALL COSTS A POSSIBLE CRIME.

  • shlomo

    to all “tzhadiks” if it will be legal so .m,b. tomorrow court say you- cant pay bills – go sale yours kidney! it look like joke?
    no i holand after prostitution was legalized unemployment nurse 30 .y.o mother of 2 was send by authority to bordel!!! because it legal work !!! she refuse and stay w/o money! because she unemployment and can’t refuse job???
    do you want this in America?

  • Kidney Donor

    To #28:

    I have to admit, that was the first thing I read here that was a logical challenge to the article, yet I would respond that a judge can still do that by saying take a $1,000 flight to somewhere in the world where it’s legal to do the surgery and then the amount paid for the kidney minus the travel expenses should go to satisfy the debt. Moreso, women are legally allowed to sell ‘eggs’ yet I’ve never heard of a court order against a women to sell her eggs.

    Also, that would be like saying a judge can make a court order for you to get a job (say taxi driver) and then pay back debts. Original challenge, but quite far-fetched.

  • weary of trying to figure you out....

    To “Shlomo”

    Learn English. I can’t make out what you’re trying to communicate. Have someone help you compose your posts, if you don’t know English.

  • Author

    I found a book on that was written (Stakes And Kidneys) that argues why markets in human body parts are morally imperative. I neither read the book neither at this time intend to purchase it (short on cash!), yet one of the Amazon book reviews from a reader in Singapore (ironically, Singapore arguably has the world’s freest economy) puts the sum message of the book very aptly:

    There are many who hold the view that there can be no such thing as “ethical organ trading”; that is to declare that any trading of any human organ is immoral. Yet there are countless people in the world who need an organ transplantation to survive but are either unable to find a donor, or are unable to afford one. The medical fact is that organ transplantation can be carried out safely with a high chance of success; that is to say, with donor and donee surviving. The social fact is that there are many people who are willing to donate their organs for a fee. Some of these people would rather not to if they weren’t poor. Some might be quite happy to do so if the fee is high even though they are not poor. So why are there resistence to organ trading? James Stacey Taylor’s book helps explain the moral considerations of organ transplantation, in particular, the trading of kidneys. People who are against organ trading almost invariably claim that organ trading leads to, or, in any case, is exploitation of the donor. They cannot, however, explain what exactly is the objection based on exploitation. Taylor anticipates these objections and provides rational answers to the concerns. Fear and superstition are the perpetual enemies of science. In many cases, fear and superstition disappear when they can be explained. Taylor has given a clear explanation of the market in kidney trading, and why it is not immoral to have an organ trading market, but that such an organ trading market is morally necessary. It addresses the point that if live organ transplantation is not morally objectionable, the only indicia of exploitation in the case of an organ purchase would be the infringement of personal autonomy and human well-being. These can easily be ensured in a well-regulated market. Furthermore, in the case of donating for a fee, the only issues are whether there was informed consent, and whether the fee was adequate. He makes the point that “it is surely wrong to hold that one can protect the autonomy of destitute people by removing from them the opportunity to escape their poverty”. Ensuring autonomy and preventing unfair payment are not insurmountable problems. So, what remains is the small matter of the superstitious belief that the human body belongs to an unknown, undefined thing generally referred to as “god” and only that being can dispose of the body or its parts. This book will help the reader understand all the major issues in human organ trading. It may not convince religious objectors; but that may not be the object of this book.

    Also, I noticed an article by Rabbi Yair Hoffman on vosizneias posted a day after mine was posted here that was well written that also recommends kidney sales to be legalized titled: “Kidneys, Morality, and Illegal Trafficking of Human Organs”

  • shlomo

    to# 29 it was in news 2 y.a this woman go to court and judge say that all legal !!! it legal work! she can’t refuse and get money!!!!

  • Doctor

    To the author. Many people are trying to change the law on drug use, such as marihuana, for example. However the law still says it is illegal to cell, to poses, to use such a drug. If you feel that the government is in the wrong here go ahead and make all the effort to change the law the way you think it should be changed. In the meantime the law of the land is the law of the land and we must obey it. And when a frum person breaks the law it makes it all so much worse because than the rest of us have the fingers pointed at. You have Donated your kidney; he was doing for the profit. Please do not defend indefensible.

  • Doctor

    To #28, show us real prove of what you are saying. As far as I know it is not true. Your argument doesn’t hold up.

  • to 34

    When you are saving a life, law lessens as an equation. Like, if a passenger in your car has a heart attack, you would disobey the traffic laws and speed to the hospital. When law goes against your ethics, do you follow your heart or follow the law? Does your heart tell you when you’re in a position to save a life to refrain from doing so because of a law passed by senators and congressmen in 1984? (The irony that this draconian law was passed in ‘Orwell’s year’ of 1984).