Property Rights in Human Biological Materials: A Case Study of John Moore v. Regents of the University of California (1990)

This paper examines the critical legal and ethical failures in property rights for human biological materials, focusing on the landmark case John Moore v. Regents of the University of California (1990). The California Supreme Court's decision created a profoundly unjust paradox: third parties can patent and commercialize human cells while the person from whose body they were removed has no ownership rights or financial benefits. This paper argues that denying property rights in excised tissue violates fundamental human dignity, undermines patient autonomy, and enables systematic exploitation—particularly of women, whose ova and reproductive tissues face disproportionate commercialization without adequate informed consent. The court's reliance on the flawed