Across America, there are more than 100,000 people waiting for lifesaving organ transplants. Each day, 17 die waiting.
According to the US Health Resources and Services Administration, 90 per cent of Americans support donation but only 60 per cent of eligible adults are registered donors. Eighty-five per cent of patients on the national transplant list are waiting for a kidney.
Five thousand of those waiting for an organ live in Massachusetts, prompting politicians there to devise a controversial new bill.
A graph showing the number or patients waiting for an organ in the US in comparison to the number of transplants performed. Credit: US Health Resources and Services Administration
According to Representative Judith García, the proposed bill would “restore bodily autonomy” for prisoners.
“Environmental factors put BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of colour) communities at a higher risk for health conditions that might require organ donation, and discriminatory incarceration rates eliminate many likely donor matches from the pool,” Representative García said in a statement.
“This reality is felt viscerally: African Americans spend an average of 1,335 days on the kidney transplant wait list compared to an average of 734 days for whites.
“High incarceration rates mean depriving non-incarcerated family members of life-saving treatment and depriving incarcerated individuals of the opportunity to save a loved one’s life.”
The US Federal Bureau of Prisons allows organ donations by prisoners to immediate family members but many state prisons, such as those in Massachusetts, have no official policy to support this process.
Across America, executed prisoners cannot donate organs, even if they are registered as an organ donor.
'Profound exploitation'
Matthew Robertson is a doctoral researcher at the Australian National University and has studied China’s organ transplantation industry.
China has long relied on the organs of executed prisoners to source its transplant program but in 2015, the Chinese government promised it would no longer continue this practice.
Since then, several reports and investigations, including a , suggest otherwise.
“Obviously there are many differences with the China case: there, death row prisoners and political prisoners are killed by the state for their organs, and sometimes organ harvesting is the method of execution,” Robertson told SBS Dateline.
“There is a similarity though, if the bill were to pass: in both cases prisoners would be coerced and have their bodily integrity infringed upon by the state for some notion of the greater good.”
He warns that the proposed bill would create a coercive environment for prisoners, through offering the incentive of a reduced sentence for a body part.
“Clearly, this new Massachusetts proposed bill moves in the direction of commodifying the human body.
“It puts a price on an organ or blood marrow donation: a shorter sentence.
“Moreover, it makes this "option" available to a vulnerable population.”
Robertson says the bill might also violate the National Organ Transplant Act, “which outlaws the transfer of any human organ ‘for valuable consideration.’”
“A court would have to decide whether a reduced sentence counts as "valuable consideration," but it would certainly seem to,” he said.
PhD scholar Matthew Robertson from The Australian National University (ANU). Credit: ANU
“This bill would lead to profound exploitation of already vulnerable and marginalised people,” he told SBS Dateline.
“Prison sentences throughout the US are exceedingly long and should be reduced.
“They should not be used to leverage people to surrender bodily organs. The potential for abuse here is vast.”
Ethical concerns over proposed Massachusetts scheme
Sophia Bryskine works as an optometrist and is the Australian spokesperson for Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting. She told SBS Dateline the proposed bill is "first and foremost a question of ethical standards.”
“Prisoners by definition, either temporarily or permanently, lost their freedom,” she said.
“Therefore, it is impossible that they make a “free and voluntary” choice to donate an organ. The new bill turns the principle of altruistic organ donation into an absurd, or even cynical concept.
“What is the difference between commercial organ trafficking and prisoners’ donation? In the first case you trade an organ for money, in the second you trade an organ for freedom. Both go against widely accepted ethical medical standards.”
Sophia Bryskine is the Australian spokesperson for Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting. Credit: Lusy Arnautova
“I am very concerned that such a bill would be considered in the US, which has a highly developed ethical organ donation system, alongside Australia and other Western countries,” Bryskine said.
It puts a price on an organ or blood marrow donation: a shorter sentence.Matthew Robertson
In a statement to SBS Dateline Jesse White, policy director for Prisoner’s Legal Services of Massachusetts said the organisation was in touch with the bill sponsors.
“We understand that some incarcerated people may want to donate organs to loved ones, and we are also cognisant of the racial inequity in our health system that has left BIPOC more at risk for unmet needs in this critical area,” White said.
“However, we are concerned regarding the potential for coercion and impact of inadequate medical care in carceral settings.
“We believe the solution must target the underlying structural problems leading to health disparities.”
China's organ harvesting industry
China has long been accused of orchestrating an industrial scale organ trafficking practice, in which organs are forcibly harvested from executed prisoners, including prisoners of conscience. Prisoners of conscience are imprisoned because of their political views, race, sexual orientation or religion.
This system of systematic kill-on-demand process has led to the murder of hundreds of thousands of highly vulnerable people.Sophie Bryskine
In 2021, UN human rights experts expressed their concerns at allegations of organ harvesting carried out on minority groups including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians, in detention in China.
The Chinese government denies that organs are forcibly taken from prisoners of conscience.
“This system of systematic kill-on-demand process has led to the murder of hundreds of thousands of highly vulnerable people, particularly prisoners of conscience,” Bryskine told SBS Dateline.
“In Massachusetts this is not the case. But China would use the Massachusetts bill to say, ‘you see, in the US they also take organs from prisoners.’
“The bill sets a dangerous precedent which can be misused by an already corrupt and unethical regime to further justify its crimes. This is terribly alarming."
