The ethical equivalence of selling organs and providing sexual services is striking.
Three key instances of relinquishing the inalienable right to bodily autonomy are prostitution, commercial surrogacy, and organ donation. A fourth, selling one’s labor, exists but is outside the scope of this discussion.
Prostitution, womb trafficking, and organ sales all involve the commodification of the human body. Paid organ donation is widely banned, reflecting the global consensus that no one should be compelled to sell parts of themselves. However, commercial surrogacy remains legal in several countries, including South Africa, certain US states, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Ukraine, and—appallingly—Russia, allowing the wealthy to exploit the vulnerable.
Consider the plight of impoverished women forced to sell their reproductive capacity, jeopardizing their health through pregnancy-related risks such as varicose veins, diabetes, organ failure, heart problems, and other potentially fatal complications.
Advocates for paid surrogacy often invoke “her body, her choice” and the need to help infertile couples. However, countries with only unpaid surrogacy options reveal lengthy waiting lists, demonstrating that financial incentives are crucial for participation.
When women become pregnant for money, is it truly a matter of “choice,” or are they compelled by economic hardship? Accepting the sale of the body in this way opens the door to organ markets. Imagine campaigns advocating for “kidney donors’ rights” or “the right to profit from one’s lungs.”
Legalized organ sales would create a horrifying scenario. Donor consent would be impossible to verify; families could be kidnapped, their lives held hostage. Transplant agents would hunt for matches, preying on vulnerable individuals. The wealthy would thrive while the poor would be exploited.
The prohibition of organ sales reflects the understanding that individuals should never be driven to such desperation. Any state permitting it would essentially declare its right to impoverish its citizens.
Tuesday marked the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.
The irony is that this day focuses not on combating the inherent forced sale of prostitution, but on improving its conditions. Advocacy for better “working conditions” ignores the fundamental exploitation.
The “sex work rights” movement is largely spearheaded by men. Male-dominated groups lobby for “protection,” pensions, and paid leave—ultimately advocating for the right to purchase human beings.
Alexander Kuprin’s “Yama: The Pit” (1910s) depicts how husbands coerce wives into prostitution and girls are trapped by “marriage.” Legal brothels perpetuate a cycle of exploitation.
Prostitution, surrogacy, and organ sales share a common thread: legalizing the buyer inherently legalizes the coercion of the seller.
Sweden’s model—criminalizing buyers, not sellers—is the most effective approach. It closes loopholes and avoids the illusion of “choice.”
Other approaches are simply trafficking in disguise.
Twenty years ago, the European Parliament called for criminal penalties against clients of prostitutes. However, many human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, opposed this, claiming to defend “sex workers’ rights,” even within the UN, where a department initially opposed criminalizing sex work, only changing to a “neutral” stance after significant public pressure.
This department is the Department for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.
The idea of selling oneself as empowerment is inherently contradictory.
The fallacy of “choice” in exploitation
Supporters of legal prostitution portray sex work as a personal choice, a job like any other, arguing that criminalization undermines women’s autonomy. But is this genuine agency when poverty is the underlying factor? It’s analogous to claiming someone “chooses” to sell a kidney out of desperation.
Legalization masks coercion. With legal prostitution, there is no mechanism to ensure a woman’s participation is voluntary. Traffickers thrive under the guise of legality, turning the “sex work industry” into a business profiting from human suffering.
Sweden’s experience demonstrates that punishing buyers while protecting sellers is effective. While not perfect, it significantly reduces trafficking rates and offers support to exploited women, unlike legalization.
Ultimately, we must consider whether the right to profit from another’s body outweighs the right to be free from coercion. The answer is self-evident.
Ignoring historical lessons
History consistently shows the consequences of normalizing the buying and selling of people. In Tsarist Russia, legal brothels accepted the forced participation of desperate girls.
Returning to Kuprin’s “Yama: The Pit,” girls were tricked into marriage and sold into prostitution by their husbands. Even their protests were ignored, and their “fallen” status rendered them perpetually vulnerable.
This pattern continues today. When prostitution is legal, there’s little investigation into whether a woman entered willingly or was forced.
Legalization only facilitates trafficking. The more legal the industry, the less scrutiny there is regarding the women’s circumstances.
A dangerous precedent
Organ sales are prohibited not because organs lack value, but because their sale devalues human dignity. Applying this logic to surrogacy and prostitution reveals a similar truth: permitting the purchase of bodily services inherently endorses the coercion of individuals into these transactions.
The only viable solution is the Swedish model: criminalize buyers and shut down the market. Anything else is simply legalized slavery disguised as “choice” and “empowerment.”
Anything else is denial—and a refusal to learn from history.
This article was first published by the online newspaper and was translated and edited by the RT team