Flynn v. Holder

The National Organ Transplant Act criminalizes compensation for organs, and classifies bone marrow as an organ. The plaintiffs are the parents of sick children and a corporation who seek to set up a program offering compensation geared at incentivizing minority and mixed race donors of blood marrow who are likely to have the rarest marrow type. Previously, blood marrow transplants were done by aspiration, a process requiring long thick needles be inserted into the cavities of a donor’s hip bones. This process was very painful, required hospitalization and general or local anesthesia, and involved serious risks. A new blood marrow transplant technique called peripheral blood stem cell apheresis is now used. This technique involves injecting a medicine that accelerates the growth of blood stem cells production in the marrow, causing more stem cells to go into the blood stream. Then, without the need of sedatives or anesthesia, a needle is inserted into the donor’s vein withdrawing blood. That blood is then filtered through an apheresis machine, the same type of machine used to extract plasma or platelets from blood donors, to extract blood stem cells. The plaintiffs argue, given this new method of blood marrow transplant, that the National Organ Transplant Act violates the Equal Protection Clause.