Whose Body Is It Anyway?

In the prevailing liberal ethos if there is one thing that is beyond the reach of others it is our body in particular and our person in general: our legal and political tradition is such that we have the right to deny others access to our person and body even though doing so would harm those who need personal services from us or body parts. However we lack the right to use ourselves as we wish in order to raise income even though we do not necessarily harm others by doing so--even though we might in fact benefit them by doing so. C?cile Fabre''s aim in this book is to show that according to the principles of distributive justice which inform most liberal democracies both in practice and in theory it should be exactly the other way around: that is if it is true that we lack the right to withhold access to material resources from those who need them we also lack the right to withhold access to our body from those who need it; but we do under some circumstances have the right to decide how to use it in order to raise income. More specifically she argues in favor of the confiscation of body parts and personal services as well as of the commercialization of organs sex and reproductive capacities.