[ck2]

It's a slippery slope.

If it was for-profit, countries like China would be pulping political prisoners for it.

Actually maybe not just China, I am sure some states in the US would make it mandatory for prisoners to donate to pay for their own prison sentences and maybe judges would take a cut too, increasing their willingness to find people guilty (judges are already allowed to own stock in privately run prisons).

[sliverstorm]

At least in the US, look on the bright side- the odds of anyone needing your marrow are low, so there would be no sense in a systematic harvesting of marrow prison-wide every month. Inmates already work in labor gangs. So, if you are a prisoner and you get selected, strike a deal and get out of labor gangs for a month (because you just earned as much as if you had been in a labor gang). It'd be a good thing to get picked!

[angelbob]

Maybe. Bone marrow donation is debilitating and really painful. I suspect not everybody would want to duck out on labor gang for it.

[gst]

Painful? At least in Europe this is done under general anesthetic and after the procedure you shouldn't feel more than light pains.

[Symmetry]

This won't make those scenarios any more likely. Its perfectly legal to sell organs already, as long as they aren't _your_ organs, but rather organs someone else donated.

[cjy]

If that was the case, wouldn't prisons already force inmates to sell their plasma/sperm? I'm pretty sure that would get struck down in a court.

[m_eiman]

I'm, pretty sure that inmate sperm would be in pretty low demand :P