Economist and La Libertad Avanza lawmaker-elect Diana Mondino, has reignited debate over one of presidential candidate Javier Milei’s most controversial policy proposals: the possibility of an “organ market.”
The national deputy-elect attempted to explain that her idea on the issue differs from the sale of organs as proposed by her party’s leader, who previously said that Argentina should “look for market mechanisms” to solve the problem.
Milei has previously said that organs should be treated as “just another market” and be free of regulation, arguing that it is an individual’s right to choose what to do with their body.
Mondino, speaking in a television interview, implied her view of the issue was subtly different.
“A market means a transaction, it doesn’t mean you will be charged for it,” she argued in a television interview. Mondino also called for the reform of the so-called “Justina Law” regulating the donation of vital organs and said it should operate in a more proactive way.
“What is the organ market? You need a kidney, and there’s no-one in your inner circle compatible with you who can or will donate it. But maybe there’s somebody somewhere else who is compatible with another, who’ll give it to you,” she pointed out.
“There was talk of an ‘organ market,’ which is radically different from the sale of organs,” highlighted Mondino, who reportedly is in the running to be Milei’s foreign minister if he wins the November 19 presidential run-off.
Mondino mentioned the US economist Alvin Roth, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2012 for his research in various aspects, including the donation and exchange of kidneys.
However, this model, though used in an unlimited way in the United States, has received pushback. In 2018, the European Union (EU) categorically rejected the proposal to implement it, after a presentation by the Spanish National Transplant Organisation.
The European Council of the European Union considered it to be the legalised “trafficking of human organs.”
Roth himself, in several interviews, has suggested that human organs could be treated as any other asset, and therefore, have a financial value.
Mondino expressed concerns over the impact of tight regulation in general.
“How do you innovate, create something new, grow in your company if there are limitations or regulations? Who would have invented this little thing [pointing to a mobile phone] if they had had to wait for someone to give them a permit to start something?”
– TIMES/NA
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