Pay Up or Give Me Back My Kidney!

When marriages go south, the fighting over material things often begins. Who gets the dog and the house. But this is just plain weird.

A doctor from New York is demanding that his estranged wife pay him $1.5 million for a kidney he donated to her in 2001. They were happily married so it seems at that time. But in 2005, the wife filed for divorce. Now the husband wants to be paid for the organ he donated to his wife.

There are laws against this, as there should be. The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 makes the sale of organs in the US illegal. This ensures equal distribution of the small supply of available organs. So, this question should come up. Would this case constitute the payment for the donation of an organ. If so, then the husband has no case.

One should note the very definition of the word donate & gift are rooted in the fact that gifts and donations are something that you give without expectation of any compensation in return.

What do you think? Should the husband be paid for the donation of his organ?