Flynn v. Holder
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
684 F.3d 852 (2012)
The National Organ Transplant Act classified bone marrow as a human organ and barred compensating donors for it, while permitting compensation for blood, sperm, and egg donations; parents of children with terminal diseases, a physician, and an advocacy group (plaintiffs) sued Attorney General Holder (defendant), arguing this distinction violated equal protection, particularly because a newer method, peripheral blood stem cell apheresis, extracts the needed stem cells from a donor's bloodstream rather than the bone marrow itself and involves no removal of marrow. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim, and the plaintiffs appealed.
Whether the inclusion of bone marrow in the definition of a human organ under the National Organ Transplant Act violates the Equal Protection Clause, and whether the Act bans compensating individuals who donate bone marrow through peripheral blood stem cell apheresis.