China Admits Use of Death-Row Organs 309
h.ross.perot writes "Like a page from Larry Niven's Known Space series, here is a real report of criminals' organs being harvested for 'profit.' From the article: 'China is trying to move away from the use of executed prisoners as the major source of organs for transplants. According to the China Daily newspaper, executed prisoners currently provide two-thirds of all transplant organs. The government is now launching a voluntary donation scheme, which it hopes will also curb the illegal trafficking in organs.
But analysts say cultural bias against removing organs after death will make a voluntary scheme hard to implement.'"
A Waste? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A Waste? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, if it is profitable to incarcerate, more people will be incarcerated too, right?... welcome to america!
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If it's profitable to kill, more will be killed. Simple like that.
Maybe. We don't know what kind of mindset they have over there, towards this sort of thing.
But if it was US judges, then oh yes, you can count on it.
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Got any citations of any case where someone was sentenced to death for the reason that their organs were needed? I have to agree with the grandparent, it is a horrible waste of good organs.
Re:A Waste? (Score:5, Insightful)
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You don't really think that this goes into the trial records, do you? I mean, not even China could be that brazen.
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Yes, I've read that in China corporations can set up factories in prison camps and the prisoners will be forced to work for free. Apparently, the prison guards of some of these camps actually go and arrest people specifically when a larger workforce is needed. If there's profit in people being arrested and imprisoned, then more people will be arrested and imprisoned.
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You've read about it? And it happens in China? And nowhere else?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour [wikipedia.org]
The 13th Amendment of the American Constitution seemingly allows penal labour as it states that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime." Douglas A. Blackmon of the Wall Street Journal has argued that in the United States in the 19th century, after the abolition of slavery, government officials on behalf of business interests "enacted [laws] specifically to intimidate blacks, [and] tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested". This resulted in "neoslavery...[at] coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries and farm plantations" and "beatings and physical torture", as blacks were "hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests."[2]
Though the use of non-punitive prison labour is not generally controversial if the labour in question serves the public good, is done for sound penological reasons, and is not excessive, cruel, unusual, inhumane, degrading, or humiliating, a significant amount of controversy has arisen with regards to the use of prison labour if the prison in question is privatized, a phenomenon present in a few areas of the United States.[6] As of 2000, privatized prisons incarcerate approximately 3.1% of the prison population within the US, or 62,000 inmates, out of a total incarcerated population of 2 million,[6] and of these privatized prisons, the vast majority use prisoners as a labour force for purposes of avoiding costs, or producing salable goods and services, and thus enhancing the profit of the corporation running them.
I guess China gets all the flak because they must be doing it in an cruel, inhumane, and exploitative manner, since everyone knows they're all dirty subhuman Reds.
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Except it's not profitable, because there's no profit. It's a donation, they're not making a profit in transferring them to people who need it. This is probably why they put "profit" instead of profit in the summary.
Or are you suggesting that judges will find perfectly innocent and healthy people guilty of crimes that warranty execution, in order to transfer their organs to people are similarly innocent but are not in top physical condition, in an extremely risky operation with a decent chance of rejection
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China and other totalitarian dictatorships haven't exactly been restrained in their executions regardless of the profit motive.
China is actually a lot more restrained than Iran.
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China and other totalitarian dictatorships haven't exactly been restrained in their executions regardless of the profit motive.
China is actually a lot more restrained than Iran.
Iran actually is a lot more restrained than North Korea.
Re:A Waste? (Score:5, Funny)
My Girlfriend gets a lot more restrained than North Korea. ...
Wait, what were we talking about again?
Re:A Waste? (Score:5, Interesting)
China is actually a lot more restrained than Iran.
So what? That's not even like hailing a turd for being the least smelly in the park. It's like hailing it for being only the second most smelly as opposed to the worst.
Re:A Waste? (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to human nature.
Why do you think those "reality shows" and afternoon "talk shows" are so popular? Because they show real life and because they give you a real impression of other people's lives, because people are actually genuinely interested how others are doing? Bullcrap. They're popular because they give people someone to point at and say "Gee, I'm not that good... but I'm still way better than them!". It makes people feel good because they can look down at someone and feel good about themselves because they're not as bad off as someone else. I have no job but at least I have fewer bottles lying around in my living room than that bum there. My son smokes and drinks, but at least he's not a deadbeat like that boy at Super Nanny.
Aspiring to something bigger would require work. Looking down at someone else is much easier.
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Not the whole American Government, just certain factions that need to keep people scared so they can justify the money they take/spend. It is really a pretty simple political formula and those who use it in America are certainly not the inventors or the only ones who use it.
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The whole WMD deal struck me as kinda odd. I mean, it was like the school bully having the new kid at his collar and threatening him to punch the living crap out of him if he didn't hand over his lunch money while the poor kid was yelling and begging because he doesn't have any, while some obnoxious 5th grader (i.e. Li'l Kim) was jumping around them yelling "Look at me, look at me, I have some, I have some!"
Makes me guess it wasn't about the lunch money but because the new kid had braces or something.
Re:A Waste? (Score:5, Funny)
You lost me there. Perhaps start by explaining what type of car the smelliest turd represents.
A taxi. Why else would you hail it?
Re:A Waste? (Score:5, Informative)
Not in terms of executions.
In 2008, China is purported to have performed 1,718 out of the 2,390 reported executions in the entire world. 72% is a pretty significant chunk. Iran's #2 with 346 (14%). Then again, China has not been reported to still be executing minors; Iran still does. (Source: Amnesty International [amnestyusa.org])
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In 2008, China is purported to have performed 1,718 out of the 2,390 reported executions in the entire world. 72% is a pretty significant chunk. Iran's #2 with 346 (14%).
I would not want to condone state-sanctioned murder in China, Iran or anywhere else. However, in a discussion about the relative "restraint" ... cough ... if China vs Iran, of what possible relevance can the figure of percentage of world-wide executions be?
A more meaningful metric would be something like number of executions per 100,000
Re:A Waste? (Score:5, Interesting)
For fun, I ran the numbers on the next three highest (and consistantly highest) capital states. Saudi Arabia, with 27,601,038 people and 102 executions, has 3.70 per million. The USA, with 304,059,724 people and 37 executions, has 0.12. Pakistan, with 172,800,048 people and 36 executions, has 0.21.
Re:A Waste? (Score:5, Funny)
And here I was, thinking that the USA was number one at everything ... disappointing.
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The USA does better at homicide. In all categories.
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Execution rate inversely proportional to homicide rate? Interesting correlation...
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Did you read the above thread at all? The US is near the top worldwide in both execution rate and murder rate. That implies "proportional," not "inversely proportional."
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Wow, that was interesting.
The mod system works!
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What are the figures relative to the criminal population of those countries? China is a nation of over 1 billion people, any absolute figure will be skewed by that.
Interesting Amnesty International report though: "in 2008 China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistand and the United States of America were the five states with the highest rate of executions. Together they carried out 93% of all executions worldwide."
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Re:A Waste? (Score:4, Insightful)
We can only really argue whether execution is right, wrong, or the usual justification of execution (or borrowing North Korean torture methods designed to prepare people for show trials) - sometimes.
Now the organ issue I'm not so worried about since I've registered as an organ donor. The real worry would be if it becomes a new vector for corruption and people are getting killed to get their organs.
Re:A Waste? (Score:5, Informative)
How were these minor girls executed ? By stoning, hanging and throwing them off buildings, exactly as islam dictates
Not to forget that they are raped first if they are still virgins, as the Islam does not allow the execution of such.
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Re:A Waste? (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? The poster above used CIA figures to show Iran has over 65 million people. What state do you live in that has more than 65 million people? California has just over 35 million and it's the largest.
For reference [wikipedia.org]. Using that chart, Iran has a population larger than the last 21 states combined.
Not a single woman was executed,
Again, huh? Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, 11 women have been executed in this country. In fact, the last woman to be executed was in 2005 in Texas. If you're counting only federal executions, two women have been executed: Ethel Rosenberg and Bonnie Brown Heady.
For reference [infoplease.com] (state data).
Other than your calculations for the percentage of executions, the rest of your comments are bupkis.
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Regardless of comparative levels of restraint -- I mean, that's a bit like saying one lunatic's genocidal campaign was a little less bloody than another's, but I did get your meaning -- there have been a couple of reports recently that seem to indicate that the Chinese government intends to tighten up (read, make a tad more fair) the criminal court system and severely reduce the number of crimes that could earn you a bullet in the head.
Here's a 2006 USA Today article [usatoday.com] reported that the Supreme People's Court
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This is true, but the motivation certainly doesn't need to be there.
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I think that it would be a waste NOT to use these organs. The prisoners will be executed either way, might as well make them contribute some good to society to offset whatever they were sentenced to death for.
"Got an influential position? Money? Power? Need a transplant? Just slip us your bloodtype and other necessary data and we'll upgrade a prisoner of your choice to death row inmate."
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I can understand your position from a technical perspective. However, in my opinion, taking organs from people without consent is wicked. Even bodies of executed criminals should be treated with the same respect as any human remains. I feel it is a fundamental human value that applies even to the worst criminals (and remember, in China, an unfortunate political opinion can be sufficient to put you on the death row).
If you believe that it is right to use organs from anyone deceased (executed or not), without
Re:A Waste? (Score:5, Interesting)
Your argue on ethical grounds here, something that I can't really follow. My body is a living shell for my mind. If my mind is gone, dump the carcass if you want, I obviously don't need it anymore. If you find someone who does, more power to you, as long as I don't have to pay to get the waste out of the way, help yourself.
The problem is more that someone might be interested in my body while I still need it, because he needs it to, and he has the power to evict me. And that's something I would indeed mind. I don't have a spare body lying around.
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That would be sensible if human parts are interchangable indifferently, if your heart is as good as mine for anyone needing one. But that's not the case. Aside of different stages of "wear and tear" (I mean, would you want to get Dean Martin's liver?), compatibility isn't so easily accomplished. You need a fairly specific, "fitting" part.
The will to live is strong in most humans. Much stronger than the will to be rich or the will to have a certain piece of possession. If you know your heart is failing and y
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Corpses do nothing but decay. They ARE bio-waste, and in nature are recycled by other organisms. Decay is life recycling the dead. There is no reason to respect a corpse except primitive custom and death denial.
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In my opinion, taking the organs from a dead body is a minor 'offence' compared to the execution itself. If China accepts that execution is an acceptable punishment, then I don't see why organ confiscation shouldn't be.
That's of course aside from the problem of incentivising execution, but my favoured solution would be to stop executions rather than stopping organ harvesting.
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I can understand your position from a technical perspective. However, in my opinion, taking organs from people without consent is wicked.
The British Government are considering 'implied consent' with regard to organ donorship - if you die, and you haven't withdrawn consent by some act, they consider you fair game.
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Assuming that the execution method does not damage the organs in question.
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Assuming that the execution method does not damage the organs in question.
Of course, this leaves the question of whether the execution method should be selected so as to minimize damage to the organs that are needed, and whether this affects the level of cruelty involved in the punishment. Clearly, it is quite important that cruelty (i.e. pain and/or panic felt by the subject) is minimized, and this could be at odds with selecting an execution method to preserve organs (eg. poison gas is probably completel
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It needs to be completely voluntary. But, even if it is voluntary, prisoners can be pressured into donating an organ in order to "redeem" themselves.
Unlike being an organ donor who dies of an accident, capital punishment is inflicting death onto someone.
If judges have something to gain, one way or another, then perhaps capital punishment should be taken out of their hands, and be put into another group's hands. I don't know how the justice system works in China, so I can't say much.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What people, as a group, have no interest in a supply of organs? You, me, anyone could at any time run into a disease that could make it highly desirable to have a matching spare organ.
I remember a religion there considers the opening of the body a mortal sin, thus devout members of that faith might be immune to the temptation. Though considering China's (official) stance on religion I guess that option is none.
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I would assume the alternative to capital punishment is a life sentence, and that a judge would have to make a decision as to whether sentence someone to life in prison or to death.
Do they have juries in China? If so, do the juries have any say in whether someone gets life in prison or the death sentence?
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Why does it have to be religious? It's simply a cultural taboo.
If you did something that got the death penalty sicced on you though, you don't deserve the niceties of social taboos.
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You're working under the assumption that the verdict comes out of a "fair" trial, i.e. where the crime is the base for the verdict. You might notice the circular problem you're heading into: When he is outside the social taboo and norm for being sentenced to death, the reverse is true as well, sentencing him to death puts him outside of the social norms and thus everything's fair. So if we had some sort of "commission" that tells whether someone can be harvested or not, the result would always be positive b
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Except that a lot of executed people are innocent, like the members of Falun Gong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falungong [wikipedia.org]
Basically, it's a large sect, which teaches QiGong.
Repression is very hard, and Falun Gong members are sent to prison, and a lot of them have been executed to grab their body parts.
I guess that because they practice qigong, they are healthy and provide nice body parts.
Funnily, China government said that Falun Gong was a dangerous sect, probably because you risk your life by following this
Words Fail Me. (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, "ghoul" comes to mind, but it's the only one that comes close.
They are parting people out for profit. Literal chop-shops for human bodies. It's a proposition only the most extreme horror movies have touched. It's the walking definition of Capital-E Evil.
You have to remember there have been three parts to the accusations. They just ADMITTED to the first one.
1. That the Chinese were selling organs of condemned prisoners, which they've always denied until now, and
2. That many of these people were conde
that is actually old news (Score:3, Interesting)
Panty knots and cheap shots (Score:2)
Ted Bundy just called and promises to be a much better date from now on.
Ed Gein promises to start collecting only stamps tomorrow.
And Albert Fish is going to be a better baby-sitter than Mary Poppins, come the morning.
Take these three monsters, toss in the Zodiac, the Ripper, and all the other shattered bloody psyches we now know by their full first-middle-last names. Hell, you might as well throw in Jason Vorhees and Dexter to boot, because it won't matter when it comes to numbers.
All of them together PALE
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Thank you for your moral outcry. We're all in shock and horror about it. What a terrible, terrible thing to do, the horrors only paralleled by the child soldiers of Africa and the ethnic clensing there, nothing else could even come close.
Let's go to the mall and buy some cheap electronic crap to calm us down, will we?
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I thought exactly the same thing about the USA when the news came out that the fresh grave of the radio presenter Alistair Cooke had been robbed and body parts removed and sold. The answer is not to blame the country, it's to blame the perpetrator
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Soylent Green is people, it's people. Not really that extreme.
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possible conflict of interest
Possible? Are you a moron? whatever they were sentenced to death for might be exactly no more than "we needed some organs, and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time." You assume that the prisoners, in China, would be guilty of whatever they were charged with. I wouldn't make that assumption in the US, let alone China.
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I do agree to some degree, but there are a few arguments against it. Most of them, based on human nature.
1) If it's profitable, it will be done.
If it is profitable to execute people, people will be executed more easily. This could well lead to some sort of prejudice towards killing certain groups of people (with rare blood types or other features that make them more "desirable" as donors).
2) Selective "killing as needed".
As a result of the last sentence under 1), it could lead to 'harvesting' organs from pr
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, to avoid the problems that go along with illegal organ trade (e.g. abduction of grown-ups and especially children), some countries have a reverse approach:
In Luxembourg, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Czech republic and Hungary, you have to register if you do not want your organs to be donated after you passed away.
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I think that it would be a waste NOT to use these organs. The prisoners will be executed either way, might as well make them contribute some good to society to offset whatever they were sentenced to death for. There is a possible conflict of interest, though, if the judges start getting paid off to sentence people to death...
http://www.lilywong.net/archive/arc990426.htm [lilywong.net]
The last but one cartoon -
"Excuse me comrade, what blood type are you"
"AB+"
"And wouldn'y you say that Li Peng is a fascist murderous dog?"
"Well yes but don't tell any-"
I guess if you had hypothetically a country where all people executed were actually guilty of a real crime and the organs were used for the public good it would be different. China isn't like that - it's easy to get people bumped off for political reasons and organs have been sold abroad. It's by
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I think that it would be a waste NOT to use these organs.
Yeah, there's all those people just walking around, what they hell are they using their organs for?
The simple truth is that you don't need death vans [usatoday.com] if your society is healthy. Instead of making their country a better place, they are simply making a profit on the creation of criminals, and their eventual murder. ALL EXECUTIONS ARE MURDER, the premeditated taking of a life. You might think that's okay (hypocrite) but another simple truth is that governments take actions which affect the people. The governme
Don't worry (Score:5, Funny)
I'll get this all sorted out in a few hundred years.
Love,
The Brennan-monster
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
At last a (former) man who knows his classics.
Bodies Exhibit, anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Ive been to the exhibition and the flatly deny the bodies are from prisoners
if anything the person who taught up of the exhibit donated his own body for the cause and it is there for all too see
theres a smear campaign by the usual religious nut cases opposed to science and medicine
Re:Bodies Exhibit, anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
The tell-tale sign is how young most of the bodies are with absolutely no trauma or anatomic evidence of disease or decay. Most of the bodies appear to be in their early to late twenties. The likelihood that all of these people died in hospital (if not laboratory) conditions of natural causes like cardiac arrhythmias is ridiculously unlikely to say the least.
But, the real evidence comes from direct investigations [wikipedia.org] into the company itself. 20/20 did an investigation [youtube.com] into the company, Premier Exhibitions, Inc. and found the actual warehouse where the bodies are preserved. Needless to say, it is NOT where the company claimed it to be, and the interview with the company's founder at the end is priceless. Further investigations by the government pretty much confirmed everyone's suspicions.
I'm surprised that all of this is news to many people. In 2006, Chinese authorities were bragging to the international media [timesonline.co.uk] about how successful their "death vans" have been. These death vans are ambulances turned mobile execution chambers expressly designed for the preservation of organs. So proud was the company's spokesman in one of the subsequent articles that he insisted any interested overseas buyers reading the article should contact him directly for sales.
-Grym
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Erm they almost all had black damaged lungs or cancers, and I tell you some of them bodies were far from old
Inmates and Organ Donation in the United States (Score:3, Interesting)
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Well, part of the reason you can't use death row inmates for organ donation is how they're executed:
* Electric chair - fried organs
* Gas chamber - organs filled with cyanide
* Lethal injection - organs filled various poisons I suspect
BBC Horizon had a program called How to Kill a Human Being [bbc.co.uk] that looked into the science of execution (YouTube viewing [youtube.com]).
Interestingly one of the most humane ways of executing people (I'll leave out the spoiler), is one that won't hurt the organs.
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Be a sensible geek (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect most of us agree that after death we won't be needing those organs... So give society a favor and fill out that organ donor card. It's just one more card in your wallet after all. Saving someone's life post-mortem is not a bad last accomplishment. :)
Granted, your liver might end up in a person worthy of a Darwin award, but it's a risk I'm willing to take myself. ;)
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Frankly, if a person wants my liver, that alone is worth a Darwin Award.
And if you are a Christian? (Score:2)
One of the Christian beliefs is that at Judgment day, people will be resurrected with their full bodies intact.
It's absurd, but what if someone claims it? doesn't he/she have the right not to donate their organs?
Re:And if you are a Christian? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would say that's a very minority Christian view. I'm a Christian AND a registered organ donor. In fact, here's a listing of various denominations of Christianity (and other religions) and their view of organ donation [organtransplants.org]. Granted I only skimmed the list, but I did not see one that opposed organ donation, and a number that highly recommend it as an act of Christian love.
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Re:Be a sensible geek (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of us find that keeping people who are genetically weak alive fundamentally wrong.
And the rest of the people in your head disagree? Or abstain from the vote?
Smartaleckism aside (sorry, but people using the pluralis majestatis when talking just for themselves really tempt me to reply with something fitting), why? You are aware that by your theory Stephen Hawking should have been dead for a few decades by now, yes? Think the world would be a richer place without him?
After Death? (Score:2)
But analysts say cultural bias against removing organs after death will make a voluntary scheme hard to implement.'"
Pah! Up here in Canda, we harvest human hearts while the donor is ALIVE!
Truth and sensationalism in one... (Score:3, Interesting)
That is what I thought when I read TFA.
There has long been speculation that killed inmates were used for organ donations - not in the least because often the family can not see the body, and execution dates are set usually less than a day or sometimes only hours before the execution. So many families can not say farewell to the prisoner. And organs for donation are of course best used fresh.
What is new of course, and what surprises me, is that the China government admits they are doing it. They are usually so secretive about anything that may be controversial, this admission comes really as a surprise to me.
Organ donation in China is far far lower than in the West. This is largely cultural (same as in Hong Kong, my place of residence), as people believe the body is best kept intact for burial/cremation. While in Western cultures that is not so much an issue. As a result there are very few people allowing organs to be donated.
But this article is also a bit sensationalist: they claim China puts more people to death than any other country. I am not surprised. China is the most populous nation in the world. Nr 2, India, also has the death penalty but is barely using this form of punishment. What would be more interesting would be the number of people put to death per million population or so. The USA is known for putting many people to death also, but China simply has more than four times the population.
there is a simple solution to lack of organs (Score:4, Interesting)
Create a central registry of organ donors.
Once you have been on the registry for (say) two years, you get preference over someone else if you need an organ.
I don't see the problem (Score:2)
I really don't see the problem with using organs from dead people, they don't need or use them any more. nobody gets hurt. I do have a big problem with killing though, which includes the death penalty.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You are correct about organs. But, as many have pointed out, the problem is that harvesting organs from people you kill creates a profit motive for killing people and thus creates pressure for more people to be killed.
*That* is the problem.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, speak for yourself. My organs are going to be pickled in canopic jars so that I can use them in the afterlife. Except, my brain that is. You can scoop that out through my nose with a long spoon - won't be needing that, thank you very much.
Larry Niven: A gift from Earth (Score:2)
The summary is presumably referring to Larry Niven's A gift from Earth [wikipedia.org] . It details a human colony that has become split into two - the Crew (descendants of the crew that flew the original ship), who rule over the Colonists. They have become dependant on organ transplants to the point that all crimes are punished by death - at which point their organs are harvested. Even worse, this is only done to the Colonists and the organs are only received by the Crew.
Anyway, it's an interesting book. The main protag
Reports about donors still being alive (Score:3, Insightful)
I read a report by a Chinese doctor who fled the country and said some donors were still alive when they started removing the organs. The donors were killed by a shooting squad and some weren't hit properly. The doctors were ordered to remove the organs anyways ASAP.
Re:Why so little outcry vs Israel? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have not heard any outcries about "Zionist barbarians". I believe you are misrepresenting the views of the people you are opposing. It is a cheap trick that does not add anything constructive to the discussion. Please stop doing that.
It is a fact that there is organized, illegal organ trade in Israel. See for example an article in Jerusalem Post, Jul 23, 2007 (available on the web). I do not believe that this a "total fabrication", as the Jerusalem Post would presumably have little interest in fabricated smearing in this case. Or do you mean that the accusations against the _state_ of Israel are untrue, as opposed to the accusations against _citizens_ of Israel?
In the case of China, I believe it has been proved that the state is involved. On the other hand, Chinese organ trade uses bodies of its own citizens, whereas in the Israeli case, bodies of citizens from other countries are used. I think it is completely fair to demand investigations in both cases.
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As does Ukraine [wordpress.com].
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That has to be one of the dumbest things I've seen online for quite a while.
Why the hell didn't you LINK to that article? Are we just supposed to browse through every single article in that newspaper from that day in order to find that article? Take your word for it? This isn't a book where you can't include the article - link to the bloody thing!
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China publicly harvests organs and people hardly notice. Israel is accused of harvesting organs, a total fabrication, and there's an outcry, demanding an investigation into these Zionist barbarians. What the hell?
When were these allegations against Israel? I've been paying pretty close attention to media driven hysteria for a couple years now, and I think I've completely missed this one. Where is the proof of the hysteria (from an American-centric POV), and where is the disproof that it actually happened?
Re:Why so little outcry vs Israel? (Score:4, Interesting)
The allegations are recent and were made by a Swedish tabloid newspaper, see Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
BBC News article [bbc.co.uk]
CNN article [cnn.com]
There have been allegations of an Israeli human body part smuggling ring for years (2003 BBC report [bbc.co.uk]).
The new allegations centre around a scandal in New Jersey in which two state legislators and several Rabbis have been arrested for trafficking in human body parts [slate.com]. The Slate article claims that Jewish religious law allow most other laws can be broken to save the life of a Jew ("for the sake of saving a life, a Jew is allowed to break just about any commandment." [slate.com]) and that the Rabbis would see human body part trafficking as a good thing ("They sincerely felt they were not hurting anyone; indeed, by giving life to another, they probably felt they were mimicking the divine. They were in the business of saving lives.") The additional allegation made by the Swedish newspaper is that the IDF were removing organs from Palestinian prisoners who die in custody, and from other sources of dead Palestinian bodies, in order to supply the smuggling groups.
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On the other hand, when there is smoke... ...there's usually a right-wing media reporter fanning the flames somewhere.
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The only outcry I heard was Israel screaming "ANTI-SEMITISM!!" when the reports surfaced.
Which, to be fair, it almost certainly was. There is no sign of any real evidence that support the reports.
What is, to my mind, totally unreasonable was the Isreali government's stance of blaming the entire country for the behaviour of a single independent newspaper.
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In a free society, when a person dies an accidental death or becomes brain-dead from same, why does their right to leave a pretty corpse trump the right to life of someone who needs a transplant? Our current transplant system is opt-in...how is that justifiable? (Once again, I'm referring to donation at death rather than live donation.)
You own your body, for better or worse. A lot of people would have cultural and/or religious objections to being "harvested." I won't debate the logic of any beliefs, just answering your question. Free society = freedom of religion.
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Re:Israel does this too (Score:5, Insightful)
[Reliable citation needed]
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mod parent jew
Re:Israel does this too (Score:5, Informative)
I can't believe that got an "Informative" tag when it's based on one old phone interview and wild speculation by a tabloid reporter. There is zero evidence that the IDF kills people in order to harvest their organs. This is blood libel, plain and simple.
Israel has an extreme shortage of organs, and every time there is a successful transplant it's all over the news sites, with the identity of the donor (usually a motor accident victim). Now you'll tell me that's all a fabricated conspiracy? Give me a break.
- Anonymous Coward, aka Eitheladar
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That is true. However, China does not receive weapons and military aid from the West, and it does not pretend to be a democracy, or pretend to have freedom of the press. OTOH, China has had a lot of negative press about Tibet.
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Israel on the other hand has a functioning democracy
Israel has a strange kind of functioning democracy, where the citizens of Israeli occupied territories are both denied actual citizenship and denied a vote in the Israeli elections, and when those citizens elect a representative government for their own territory, that government is called illegal and terrorist and ignored.
and pays for everything.
Israel is the largest total recipient of direct economic and military assistance from the United States since World War II, and it was the largest annual recipient from 1976 to 2003. [wikipedia.org] Isr
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