Profiting Off Placenta: The Legal Implications of Extracting Placenta Post-Birth
At childbirth, the placenta is routinely removed, discarded, or taken away without discussion. For most patients, it appears to be little more than waste, a product of pregnancy that has no value after birth. Yet beyond the delivery room, placentas have become an important commodity. They are processed into regenerative medicine, incorporated into cosmetic products, and sold across a multibillion-dollar biotechnology market. Several name brands, including but not limited to Olay, Neutrogena, and Estee Lauder, use placenta or placental extract in their products. While hospitals and companies profit from these uses, the women from whom placentas originate are rarely informed of their economic value, let alone compensated. U.S law permits hospitals and biotechnology companies to profit from placental tissue while denying women compensation and informed control, even though placentas are non-vital, naturally expelled biological materials that closely resemble compensable body products like blood plasma. This exposes a legal gap that allows third parties to monetize biological materials without transparency, consent, or compensation.
The placenta is a temporary organ that forms during pregnancy, connecting the mother and fetus to allow the exchange of nutrients, oxygen, and waste. Despite its important role during pregnancy, the placenta has historically been treated as little more than medical waste post-delivery. In the majority of birthing centers, it is routinely removed and discarded, usually without discussion with the parent. This practice reflects the idea that the placenta is practically worthless once its biological role is complete. In recent years, however, scientific research has revealed that placentas contain cells and compounds with powerful regenerative properties. They include stem cells and proteins that can help wounds, support tissue regeneration, and are being researched to develop treatments for certain conditions. Beyond medicine, the cosmetic industry has also found uses for placental tissue. Many skincare companies incorporate placental extracts into products marketed to improve skin texture and reduce the signs of aging. These uses have created what is now known as the “placenta economy,” a growing market in which corporations and hospitals can profit from biological material once considered disposable. Unlike blood or other body products, U.S law allows companies to use placentas without paying the parents, despite their clear commercial value. Most parents are generally unaware that the placenta has significant commercial value. While some, particularly those who donate to research (for no compensation), may be aware of its value, its uses remain largely unknown to the general public.
U.S. law around human tissue is surprisingly uneven. The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 (NOTA) makes it illegal to sell organs and tissues for transplantation, aiming to prevent exploitation and keep life-saving resources available to those who need them. The placenta, biologically speaking, falls under this definition. It is human tissue that is composed of cells and blood vessels, but it is generally not considered an organ, and the law does not require hospitals to compensate the parent or even seek consent for its use. NOTA does not cover all forms of biological material, however. Blood plasma, sperm, and eggs, for instance, are legally traded in regulated markets. People are compensated for donating plasma, and fertility clinics often compensate egg and sperm donors. These systems acknowledge both the value of the material and the rights of the donor, creating a safe space for people to benefit from what their bodies produce naturally. Placental tissue, however, occupies a legal gap. Although it possesses obvious commercial value, parents rarely have a say in it and seldom receive payment. It is legally defined as a tissue, which cannot be sold, yet can be processed, sold, and used by hospitals and biotech companies without paying the parent.
Parents are rarely informed that their placenta, a biologically rich organ-like tissue, will be collected, processed, or sold. In many hospitals, the removal of the placenta is treated as a routine medical procedure, with little explanation beyond basic disposal. Parents are rarely told that placentas may be transferred to third-party processors or incorporated into commercial supply chains. The legal justification for this system largely rests on precedent from cases like Moore v. Regents of the University of California. This case holds that patients do not retain ownership over cells that are removed from the body. It established that people do not bear the right profits gained from products and research developed from their bodily materials. This means that patients cannot sue for theft when those tissues are used for profitable research. This ruling aimed to safeguard scientists from lawsuits from the source donor when using valuable biological materials for medical research. While patients cannot own their discarded cells, doctors are mandated to disclose any financial or research interests they may have in those cells. If doctors fail to do so, then this can lead to legal action due to a lack of informed consent. Despite this ruling, many parents remained uninformed about the placenta itself. In fact, there are no federal or state laws in place that mandate a parent to even receive their placenta pathology results. If such results come back even slightly abnormal, hospitals are technically not obligated to share that with their patient. Parents are fully knowledgeable about the placenta, creating a significant legal gap that must be addressed.
The placenta’s legal classification as a “tissue” creates a regulatory gap. NOTA’s prohibition on the sale of tissue is rooted in concerns about coercion and the commodification of life-saving resources. Placentas do not quite fit in with that rationale. They are not life-saving to the donor, are expelled regardless of consent, and are functionally closer to materials like plasma, which is biologically linked with the placenta during pregnancy. Yet unlike plasma donors, parents receive neither compensation nor regulatory protections. The raw material itself is obtained at zero cost because the law denies parents a profit.
Addressing this gap does not require fully commodifying the placenta or dismantling existing law. Hospitals could be required to obtain explicit, informed consent for any non-disposal use of placental tissue, with clear disclosure of potential commercial applications and any abnormalities related to the placenta. This would inform parents more about the placenta itself and its uses. Legislatures could reconsider the placenta as an exception to NOTA, allowing parents to receive modest compensation for it without creating a free market for the placenta. In this way, compensation could be capped and standardized to avoid coercion while still recognizing donor contribution. Regulated markets for plasma, sperm, and eggs demonstrate that transparency and compensation can coexist with commercialization. By allowing hospitals and corporations to profit from placental tissue, all while denying parents information and compensation, the U.S. law lends itself to a legal gap. Closing this legal gap means recognizing that biological materials do not lose their ethical significance when they leave the body.
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