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Organlegging is the name of a fictional crime in the Known Space universe created by Larry Niven. It is the illicit trade of black market human organs for transplant. The term organlegging is a portmanteau combining the words "organ" and "bootlegging", literally the piracy and smuggling of organs. Image File history File links Wiki_letter_w. ...
Known Space is the fictional setting of several science fiction novels and short stories written by author Larry Niven. ...
Larry Niven Laurence van Cott Niven (born April 30, 1938) is a US science fiction author. ...
The or underground market is the part of economic activity involving illegal dealings, typically the buying and selling of merchandise or services (for example sexual services in many countries) illegally. ...
Look up Portmanteau word in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
In biology, an organ (Latin: organum, instrument, tool) is a group of tissues that perform a specific function or group of functions. ...
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The crime developed as a response to the Organ Bank Problem, a concept featured prominently in the early Known Space stories, particularly those set in the 21st and 22nd century. The Organ Bank Problem is a central tenent in the novel A Gift from Earth, as well as the Gil Hamilton detective stories. As speculative fiction, the concept is a prime example of a gedanken experiment. It is an examination of the consequences to society of a new technology (in this case, the perfection of organ transplants), carried to their logical conclusion. A Gift From Earth is a science fiction novel by Larry Niven, first published in 1968 and set in his Known Space universe. ...
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In philosophy, physics, and other fields, a thought experiment (from the German Gedankenexperiment) is an attempt to solve a problem using the power of human imagination. ...
The effect of technology on society is a recurring theme in Niven's stories. In literature, a theme is a broads idea in a story, or a message conveyed by a work. ...
The Organ Bank Problem In Niven's universe, it was possible to transplant nearly any organ in the body (and prevent rejection) by the mid 21st century. Since any organ could now be replaced, in theory one could use the organ banks to extend life indefinitely. In practice, however, this was not the case. To maintain communal organ banks, one needs donors (i.e. dead people). When the death rate is reduced (via the organ banks), the number of donors decreases. Therefore the system is fundamentally flawed, as the demand will always exceed the supply.
Attempts by Government to Solve the Problem Since the average citizens wished to extend their lives, the world goverment sought to increase the supply by using condemned criminals to supply the organ banks. When this failed to meet the demand, citizens would vote for the death penalty for more and more trivial crimes. First violent crimes, then theft, tax evasion, false advertising, and even traffic violations became punishable by the organ banks. This failed to solve the problem, as once the death penalty was passed for a crime, people stopped comitting it. Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by the State as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offenses. ...
A violent crime or crime of violence is a crime in which the offender uses or threatens violent force upon the victim. ...
Everyday instance of theft: the bike which fits on this wheel has disappeared. ...
This article contrasts tax evasion, tax avoidance, tax resistance and tax mitigation. ...
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A moving violation is any violation of the law, committed by the driver of a vehicle, while it is in motion. ...
Further attempts to alleviate the problem by declaring certain groups of cryogenically frozen people to be dead in law (the so-called "Freezer Bills") and harvesting their organs also proved to be unsuccessful. The freezer vaults represented a finite supply and therefore were eventually exhausted. Cryonics (often mistakenly called cryogenics) is the practice of cryopreserving humans or animals that can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine until resuscitation may be possible in the future. ...
Organlegging as a Response to the Problem Organlegging can be considered a crime that evolved to meet the demand. Since the supply of organs could never match the demand, there would be those desperate enough seek them at any cost. Many of those people would be of sufficient wealth as to provide a strong financial incentive for a black market.
Organlegging Gangs The crime of organlegging involves several aspects: abduction of unsupecting persons, the harvesting of their organs, and finding customers to purchase the organs once they were acquired. Thus a successful organlegging gang required three groups of people, one to handle each aspect of the operation.
The first group (the "snatch men") usually consisted of young, tough, uneducated men, with just enough intelligence to capture a prospect, and get him or her to the harvesting facility alive without getting caught.
The second group were the "doctors", the ones who harvested the organs and kept them ready for transport to a customer at a moments notice. This was usually the safest aspect of the operation as the harvesting facility could be hidden in a remote location, and the doctors had little or no public contact.
The third group (usually referred to as "organleggers" proper) were the ones who found potential customers, and delivered the organs to them. They were salespeople and field surgeons at the same time. The advent of automated precision surgical equipment allowed them to transplant the organs on the spot and required minimal training to operate. This was by far the most dangerous aspect of the operation. Some customers would attempt to turn in the organleggers in a fit of conscience after receiving their transplant. At least one pair of organleggers were killed by a customer attempting to cover his tracks for another crime. For this reason, they changed their identities, faces, and other physical characteristics at will. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ...
End of Organlegging in the Known Space Universe The only way to end the organlegging problem was to reduce the demand for human organs. Given the desire of humans to extend their lives, the only way to reduce the demand was to find a substitute for transplant stock. Alloplasty, improved prosthetics, and most importantly, the ability to grow the needed organs by manipulating ones own DNA, ultimately made the organ banks obsolete. This was accomplished by the mid to late 22nd century.
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