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China Plans To Stop Harvesting Organs From Executed Prisoners
cold fjord writes "The People's Republic of China continues its long march toward liberalization with two steps forward (And one+ step back?). The BBC reports, 'A senior Chinese official has said the country will phase out the practice of taking organs from executed prisoners from November. Huang Jiefu said China would now rely on using organs from voluntary donors under a new national donation system. Prisoners used to account for two-thirds of transplant organs, based on previous estimates from state media. For years, China denied that it used organs from executed prisoners, but admitted it a few years ago... Human rights groups estimate that China executes thousands of prisoners a year, but correspondents say that the official figures remain a state secret.'"
I plan to stop drawing water from my well, once it runs dry.
I have a suspicion that the "voluntary donor program" means "we're going to shoot you anyway, but we won't charge your family for the bullet if you volunteer to let us harvest your organs."
Sorry but morales aside. Why not harvest organs like this that can't be harvested from volunteers (without them dying). Go China.
Flame on
That is an excellent idea. On top of that, I'd harvest a kidney from everyone with a life sentence or on death row.
If these prisoners were serial killers, rapists, murderers and other assorted bad guys, then I fully support using their organs to save lives. I find it poetic justice and a very fitting end for the life of a person who (possibly) killed so many others.
If these prisoners are political prisoners sentenced to death because they were at Tiannamen Square or oppose communism, then I welcome the end of such barbaric policies.
sudo make me a sandwich
Not good: China Takes Aim at Western Ideas
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I was surprised to learn that where I live, everyone is automatically considered an organ donor. The doctors can takes organs from my body when I die, even if my family object. If you object, you have to sign an opt-out.
Great system actually. The only way to avoid the horror stories of people being kidnapped for organs or, worse, the poor selling their organs, is to ensure there are enough donated organs available. A lot of people don't care about losing their organs after death, but requiring people to opt-in means that most just don't bother.
There were just two problems with China's policy. One is that the organs were given to the ruling class, rather than being distributed on a basis of need. The other is that it encourages judgements and policies which increase the number of people sentenced to death.
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Off with your head!
Actually, all hyperbole aside, my thoughts were "why are they stopping this and why aren't WE in the US doing this?"
It sounds like a great idea. If someone is going to die anyway, after exhausting the judicial system (again speaking for the US), why waste these organs that could go to help the many people on the waiting lists?
It seems a waste to lose such a vital resource that could help the lives of many innocent people.
Most people are on death row for taking lives unjustly (premeditated murder, etc), why not use this as a method for them to give life to others?
Seems like it would balance out the karma in life a bit, no?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
People who take lives and have forfeited theirs (if you agree with the idea of capital punishment in the first place) are still humans, with basic human rights. Taking their organs without their permission, or coercing them into "donating" would not pass constitutional scrutiny in the U.S., and would probably be deemed "cruel and unusual."
We could always amend the Constitution, but while I enjoy Larry Niven's Known Space stories, I wouldn't like to give government an incentive to harvest the organs of citizens. Look at for-profit prisons, which already have a large and powerful lobby. Imagine an organ-trading industry, always hungry for fresh meat.
And since there's no such thing as "karma", no, that's not a good reason either.
Are you seriously wondering why they are stopping?
You seem to be laboring under the mistaken belief that the death penalty is the same there as it is here. In China, they routinely execute political dissidents, politically-active members of disfavored minority groups, thieves, embezzlers, etc. Any trial that occurs is rather perfunctory. Yes, there are your typical death-row murderers and rapists too, but the high-volume organ supply comes from political prisoners, as they are easier to "warehouse" due to being less violent. They have their blood tested after arrest, and then are executed when a customer requires an organ.
All you need is better spin and propaganda.
Are we supposed to believe they're just going to stop doing this completely?
Or will they just come up with a new way to spin it -- "Comrade Yang, in contrition for his terrible crime of jaywalking has volunteered to be euthenized and have his organs harvested. He hopes the glorious People's Republic will accept his noble sacrifice as atonement for his transgressions." Forcing someone to sign the paperwork probably isn't that tough when you can get away with anything in secret and threaten people's families.
And then they'll be right back where they are now, but with better PR.
I'd like to think China is going to halt the practice. But in reality, it's probably quite lucrative, and power once held is seldom given up.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It sounds like a great idea.
So do private prisons. Conflict of interest, anyone? "We need more organs!" "OK, we'll make up some sentences."
Ezekiel 23:20
Taking life-saving organs that would otherwise rot and be wasted from a sack of dead meat = cruelty? To the dead meat?
By the way, while wasteful, shooting a dead cow hung on a hook in a warehouse cannot be called 'animal cruelty', due to the same distinction.
Granted, if a corpse is to be frozen so that it can one day be repaired and revived, that's a different matter. ...hmm, and by default, perhaps organs would automatically be part of a person's estate, for relatives to sell (after paying inheritance tax)... and they /could/ bury those valuables organs and leave them to rot, or burn them in an incinerator, but still have had to pay tax on the high market value of the organs they inherited from the person who died and so doesn't own them any more...
It would be encouraging if this provided an incentive to properly manage these assets, making sure that they're used for all they're worth, rather than casually doing away with them while people on transplant waiting lists cry in the background. I have a mental image of Marie Antoinette tossing an early-leaving party guest's giant cake into a fire while the hungry look on. If you have to pay inheritance tax on something you receive, maybe you'll value it more and be less flippant about disposing of it carelessly...
Having a voluntary system is one thing, as long as it is genuinely 100% voluntary.
The issue with any other system is that it offers a perverse incentive to execute more people. It is also immoral in my opinion to treat other people as your property to do with as you please, even in death.
Ignoring deeper ethics questions it'd also be pretty pointless. Very few people are executed in the US and the methods are virtually all incompatible with donation. You'd have to get the method of execution changed in multiple states.
Do you want to know how to get massively more organ donors: Add an organ donor opt-out tick-box to the next to the driving license application form and renewal form. Something like 90% of people (based on research not pulled out of my ass) will not tick the box. Combine that with giving donors (and people with medical exemptions) priority in the waiting line for organs. Either of these measures would be more than enough to solve a donor shortage issue and will provide orders of magnitude more organs than culling prisoners.
Because the typical execution of prisoners in America poisons all the organs....
And the fact that they usually sit in prison for 10 - 30 years waiting for the execution (puts a lot of miles on what may have once been healthy young viable organs)
If bars don't serve drunk people, then McDonald's shouldn't serve fat people...
Actually "karma" means "action" or deed", and the core concept is that the entire cause-and-effect cycle is a single inherently inseparable thing, and when you "create" a cause, you are simultaneously creating all of it's effects. It's somewhat analogous to the concept "you reap what you sow". But in it's originating culture it's a concept fundamental enough to have its own dedicated word. And a nice short one at that - those tend to be culturally important.
The whole religious "spiritual economy", "you deserve what you get and/or are paying in advance for something great" thing is a cultural thing that grew up around that. I suspect that since for many cases "what goes around comes around" is closely analogous it becomes a convenient place for corrupt priests to hang the old "pie in the sky when you die" trick.
Your own post espouses the concept - it's not the organ harvesting itself that is the problem, in fact that part seems rather benign to me - get as much good as possible out of this evil. The problem is the the potential consequences that can grow out of it, the perverse incentives it puts in place. "Crime is dropping and we have a shortage of organs? Well let's just retroactively lower the bar a bit as to what constitutes a capital offense, problem solved." That's not necessarily how things would go down, but if you build the system and it is eventually corrupted then the horrors it perpetrates will be in part your doing. Your karma. The responsible being tries to look at least a few steps ahead and create consequences whose net balance is as desirable as possible (by their personal standards) - to create good karma.
Anyway, as a fellow SF fan I imagine you have a taste for the long vision and thought I'd do my part to share a source of real wisdom I've encountered. Those crazy old Eastern mystics and philosophers were actually pretty on the ball: they managed to take a deeply empowering perspective on our relationship with the cosmos and refine it into a "religion" to guide and shape individuals and society in productive ways, without ever invoking any sort of Authority beyond the individual. Even their rules for Acolytes are a very practical affair: "doing these things will disrupt your training, don't ask the Master to guide you if you're unwilling to follow". Don't let the New Age folks scare you off, every movement has it's groupies. And as groupies go the New Agers tend to be among the most friendly, tolerant, and generous folks you could hope to meet, which I think speaks well of the core philosophy.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Then why stop at harvesting organs? Why not use the dead as food?
I wouldn't consider it morally wrong to eat the dead, assuming that the rights of the person weren't violated while they were alive. There are several practical reasons why doing so is a bad idea, of course, but "that hunk of flesh used to be a person" really isn't one of them.
Why bother following a person's will, and just let the living do what they want with a person's estate?
That's actually a valid question. My response is that you follow someone's will because the living have made a promise to do so. Keeping your word is important (or, at least, it should be); regardless of whether or not the person you gave it to is dead.
On the other hand, I definitely do not believe in doing something just because "that's what dear old dead Dad would have wanted," or similar. Life is for the living, not the dead.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I would look at it a different way. I do not believe that human rights would be only a part of the reason. Another important reason is that the situation is exploitable. How would you like to be accused of doing something you did not do (a set up) and be given a death sentence, and then your organs are harvested? There are always a loop hole in laws, and laws are not always right. As a result, the false positive cases could intentionally be the exploitation of the system (organ harvest). That said, to me, it is out weight any laws to allow harvesting organs from prisoners with a death sentence.