Organlegging
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.
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 tenet 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 thought 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.
The effect of technology on society is a recurring theme in Niven's stories.
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 government 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 committing it.
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.
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 unsuspecting 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.
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.
See Also:
Known Space
Flatlander
Gil Hamilton
The ARM
A Gift From Earth
Coma
Known Space is the fictional setting of several science fiction novels and short stories written by author Larry Niven.
Flatlander is a term used in Larry Niven’s Known Space series, initially to describe one who has never left Earth.
A Gift From Earth is a science fiction novel by Larry Niven, first published in 1968 and set in his Known Space universe.
Coma is a 1978 mystery film based on the novel Coma by Robin Cook. ...
*A surgical operation in which a synthetic material, such as stainless steel, replaces a body part or tissue.
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