I recently read an article (in Discover magazine)about organ harvesting in third world countries. They primarily discussed the sale of kidneys on the black market. I have to admit I was really shocked that such a thing happens. I realize that a person can get by with only one kidney, but I also have to note that we are all born with two which means that there is an evolutionary advantage to having a pair.
Anyway, the article explained how most of the kidneys come from poor people in rural parts of India and various countries in South America, where people are desperate and may sell them for as little as $300. It is terrible to consider being in such dire straits that you would be willing to start selling parts of your body off.
They also mentioned that in China organs are regularly harvested from criminals particularly the people on (their equivalent of) death row. And this is actually what I wanted to talk about.
At first glance this seemed like a good idea to me. If they are going to be put to death anyway, why not save someone else' life with their organs? Why waste a perfectly good kidney when it's only the mind of the murder that has gone bad? And if an individual has taken a life, doesn't it seem only fair they should be required to help save one in return?
But then the more I thought about it, the more I decided against it. First of all I was assuming the person in prison actually committed the crimes they were incarcerated for. Obviously that is often not the case, especially in China. And then I got to thinking about basic human rights. It's one thing to execute someone (actually I am not at all sure what I think about executions, but that is a topic for another day), and quite another to cut them open and remove a part of their body. That is exploitation isn't it? And then you run into the problem of governments putting more people to death simply because they want more money, and need more organs to attain it, and so it gets all muddled. But do you waste perfectly good organs that could go to needy people based on principal?
I must admit these are very preliminary thoughts. Like I said before, I'd never even heard of this before yesterday. I certainly think taking organs from poor, ignorant, desperate people is a crime, but does anyone have any thoughts on taking them from death row prisoners who will be executed either way?
Assuming the government is doing it to actually help people as opposed to making money for themselves they could offer incentives for death row inmates to do it. For instance, they would give $1000 dollars to their family if they were willing to donate a kidney. That way it is a win win. If that were the case they could even extent the offer to other organs. What if they could choose to have their heart donated as their way of being executed? Something interesting to think about.
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