Masculine Bodies in the Biocapitalist Era: Compromising Human Rights of Commercial Kidney Donors in the Philippines

Abstract

Commodification of kidneys has become a new locus for co-optation of the human body, bioethics, and legal standards on organ donation and transplantation in the biocapitalist era. Neoliberal policies operate through a new constitutionalism, which opens the healthcare system of developing countries like the Philippines to transplant tourism’s promises of huge economic gains. This article explores how the human rights of most male providers from poor communities who sell their kidneys are seriously compromised by the inconsistent and inadequate rules governing organ donation, transplantation and bioethics. I have employed textual analysis of the existing Philippine laws on organ donation and transplantation; biographical narrations of kidney sellers from Baseco, Manila; and key-informant interviews with organizations opposing organ commodification in this area to explore how the bodies of the poor are treated as “organ banks for the better off” in an era when biotechnology promises longer lives to those who can pay. As a way forward, I suggest that the actors involved in the organ donation and transplantation process should share the responsibility to address the social injustices associated with it.

Key Words:

• Baseco
• bioethics
• biocapitalism
• human rights
• kidney selling
• masculinity
• organ trafficking
• the Philippines