Almost anything can be found for sale on craigslist.com. If you've recently been on the Web site you might even have come across an ad offering up a kidney for $100,000.

"Kidney's yours. [It's] As simple as that. Do it as soon as you want it done," William Miller of El Cajon, who posted the ad, said.

Miller and his fiancée are unemployed. He said one way to help pay the bills is by selling an organ.

"If I got a hundred thousand dollars plus medical expenses, I could put money aside for the kids to go to college. I could pay for myself to go back through college to get a better job," he said.

In the five days Miller's posting was up he received two messages: one criticizing his ad; the other asking for details.

Miller's not alone. An increasing number of people are looking for new ways to raise money by selling, hair, plasma, eggs and sperm. But when it comes to organs or tissue, the bottom line is that it's illegal.

Lisa Stocks of LifeShare said the line is crossed "the minute you start talking monetary reimbursement, giving money to someone, giving anything to someone, anything that's called 'valuable consideration.' You can't give a car to someone for a transplant. You can't give anything to get a transplant."

San Diego State University ethics professor J. Angelo Corlett said it's a highly-charged ethical debate.

"In some cases it might be justified on moral grounds," Corlett said. "But we can all imagine many cases where it is about greed, it is about exploitation. And I think most of us would agree those kinds of cases aren't justified."

Regardless of the arguments, U.S. federal law prohibits selling human organs and tissues. Any compensation beyond medical expenses can mean fines and jail time.

The craigslist posting has since been taken down. The Millers said they had no idea it was illegal.

source: 10news.com

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