vabast

Owning a human jawbone is legal.

The problem is that most states have laws saying that dead bodies must be disposed of by only certain people. Those people won't let you have the bones.

E.g. there is a company in Oklahoma named Skulls Unlimited who will strip a skull or human skeleton (full articulated atomy for about $7500 last I checked), however, they will only deliver the results to someone in the education or medical industries, or an organization like a museum or school. So if I want my father's skeleton stripped and articulated to hang in my closet I am SOL, but if I want it donated to a doctor who makes $270,000+ a year hey that's no problem at all.

None the less you and just about everyone else involved in providing care are compensated. The one exception is the person who makes it all possible by allowing tissue harvesting. That isn't fair or ethical.

If you truly believe in intangible compensation and feel good motivation, shouldn't you be working to do ensure that the families who have lost a son, a mother, a husband, a child...receive some fraction of the benefit that the hospitals and doctors will receive when tissue harvesting takes place? That thought should make you feel good and you should be fighting to overturn these unethical laws. Is your refusal to stand up for the rights of tissue owners a product of fear that paying them will somehow reduce your pay?

We live in a country with a for-profit health care system. That means the providers are there for a profit. Why exclude one category of provider? Drug makers can go home to warm fuzzy feelings about helping people AND a nice paycheck. Tissue providers are just as important to the system as drug makers. Why deny them compensation?

Until this is corrected, we should not allow tissue harvesting, period.

Not paying them is unethical.

Not paying anyone who contributes meaningfully to the end result is unethical. That includes the person whose tissue is being harvested. If you are saying it it illegal to do your job ethically (ensuring everyone is compensated fairly), doesn't that raise questions about whether your job should be done at all?

Are you working to change the laws to ensure fair compensation for everyone?

How do I get my family/estate compensated? It doesn't have to be much, I would be OK with as little as 10% of what the doctors/hospitals bill the recipients of the tissue.

You don't work for free. Nor do the doctors, insurance companies, nurses, or anyone else. It is unethical that those people be paid but the person who enables all the work by agreeing to have issue harvested does not. Until that unethical situation is corrected why should I participate?