Bitter Harvest

My colleague Graeme Wood makes the case that we ought to harvest the organs of convicts slated for execution. There turn out to actually be two separate issues here. One, though we do sentence people to be executed, we never force them to give up their organs. But more interestingly, it turns out that those sentenced to death aren't even able to volunteer to serve as organ donors post-execution.

This last bit doesn't seem defensible to me. On the other hand, it's just very hard for me to know how to conduct moral reasoning about what is and isn't a permissible modification of a practice that should not be permitted. In other words, given that we shouldn't be executing prisoners at all, I don't really know how to respond to ideas about what things it is or isn't a good idea to do with their organs.

Comments

"The simple reason is that execution generally ruins organs before they can be harvested"

Besides the disgust factor, the US executes a dozen (maybe) people a year, mostly in Texas and Florida. Doesn't seem like a big source of organs (unlike China which executes hundreds).

Posted by CParis | February 25, 2008 5:04 PM

I'd refer him to a science fiction short story by Larry Niven written about 40 years ago. In it the protagonist is sentenced to death for violating traffic regulations one time too many.

The perverse incentive to lower the bar on capital punishment is obvious, and was the point of the story.

Posted by Herb | February 25, 2008 5:16 PM

I'd refer him to a science fiction short story by Larry Niven written about 40 years ago. In it the protagonist is sentenced to death for violating traffic regulations one time too many.

The perverse incentive to lower the bar on capital punishment is obvious, and was the point of the story.

Posted by Herb | February 25, 2008 5:17 PM

I'm all for it, on both counts.

Unfortunately, the U.S. simply doesn't execute enough people to bother implementing such a practice.

Posted by Korha | February 25, 2008 5:31 PM

I'm all for it, on both counts.

Unfortunately, the U.S. simply doesn't execute enough people to make such a practice worthwhile so why even bother?

Posted by Korha | February 25, 2008 5:32 PM

That was a good story, Herb. I think Niven worked it into his Ringworld series at some point.

Medically, I wonder what the safety issues would be with the organs after a person's been gassed or injected.

Posted by Jeremy | February 25, 2008 5:36 PM

Castro avoided some of the ruin-the-organ problems, when he was still killing a lot of people, when he would essentially drain the condemned of the their blood, and trade it for hard currency. It is unclear to me if he ever bothered to waste a bullet on these people, after tapping them out, or whether he just would dump their severely, well, anemic, bodies into unmarked grave.

Capital punishment is somewhat like torture; it's nigh impossible to carry it out without it being severely corrupting, even if the practicioner starts with the intention of only using it when it is "necessary" or "deserved".

Posted by Will Allen | February 25, 2008 5:36 PM

Wouldn't this harvesting practice tend to encourage more executions?

Posted by Hedley Lamarr | February 25, 2008 5:45 PM

With prison conditions as bad as they are, it seems like there's a practical reason to reject prison organs. I can't imagine it's very easy to live in a Texas state penitentiary for 20 years and NOT contract hepatitis. Obviously, not all death row inmates are going to contract illness, but coupled with the previous comments about the relatively small number of executions, it doesn't seem like a source of organs worth fighting to gain.

Posted by sam | February 25, 2008 5:58 PM

>CAUTION: this post contains a reprehensible analogy

In other words, given that we shouldn't be executing prisoners at all, I don't really know how to respond to ideas about what things it is or isn't a good idea to do with their organs.

I think you respond by saying, "we shouldn't be asking this question, because executions are immoral." Don't let them flank your position.

Imagine having an argument about whether it is wrong to render the fat of people killed in gas chambers to make soap. Once you grant that gassing them is O.K., you're ready to have the argument about the morality of making products from their bodies. You don't want to find yourself in a position where you're having that argument.

Executing people and then using their organs is wrong. Executing people and then NOT using their organs is also wrong.

Posted by FearItself | February 25, 2008 6:05 PM

Mr. Allen,

Cuba never executed 'a lot' of people. The number of people executed in Cuba since 1959 is not over 5,000 (that's an estimate from Hugh Thomas, a _conservative_ historian) and most of those were officials of a tyranny, soldiers guilty of war crimes, people who collaborated with an attempted foreign invasions and other people who were clearly guilty of serious crimes. You can't compare it to the US or any country in peacetime. Compare it to the 10,000 executions carried out by the French Resistance after the Liberation.

The story about draining blood is a malicious slander. I have never heard anything like it from any credible source and it goes against everything we have reason to believe. What's your source? Probably something from the Miami mafia?

By the way, Mr. Yglesias, there is nothing immoral about capital punishment (I don't have an opinion one way or the other about the organs).

Posted by Hector | February 25, 2008 6:22 PM

Matt,

More discussion, please. You claim the immorality of capital punishment as a given, a statement of some controversy, I believe.

Of course, conservative pundits get to claim the immorality of all sorts of things (abortion, gay marriage, LOLcats) with no explication beyond a vague statement like 'defense of traditional marriage.' But, c'mon - we've got to hold ourselves to higher standards!

Posted by David Samuels | February 25, 2008 6:42 PM

I imagine there would be some risk of the organ recipients taking on some of the criminal traits of the donors, a la Frankenstein.

Posted by Other Ezra | February 25, 2008 7:00 PM

Too much potential incentive to fake the "consent" in the second situation. Anything that makes execution by beaurocrats possibly profitable for beaurocrats [obviously under the table] is to be avoided.

Posted by Phoebe | February 25, 2008 7:26 PM

"My colleague Graeme Wood makes the case that we ought to harvest the organs of convicts slated for execution."

Shit, what next?

Posted by Dan S. | February 25, 2008 8:13 PM

Didn't Matt once say he thought capital punishment was occasionally appropriate? I'd be interested to know whether and why he changed his mind.

On the topic...how about letting condemned prisoners volunteer for medical research, as cadavers? Not only would that probably be a more meaningful contribution to medicine, given the likely physical state of executed bodies, but one can imagine it leading to more humane (well, more comfortable, anyway) methods of execution.

Posted by fumphis | February 25, 2008 8:24 PM

It says worlds about a Harvard philosophy degree that Matt doesn't see a problem with the state killing people to get their organs.

I mean, once you're accustomed to torturing people to get false confessions, how much further are you going when you kidnap the poorest and weakest members of society, torture them until they 'confess', and then harvest their organs.

Why, some would even argue that at last executions served some worthwhile purpose.

Maybe even some on this thread.

Posted by serial catowner | February 25, 2008 8:38 PM

It says worlds about a Harvard philosophy degree that Matt doesn't see a problem with the state killing people to get their organs.

You're misreading him.

On the other hand, it's just very hard for me to know how to conduct moral reasoning about what is and isn't a permissible modification of a practice that should not be permitted.

The "practice that should not be permitted" is "the state killing people." Full stop.

Posted by southpaw | February 25, 2008 8:43 PM

Hector, I don't intend to debate a person who considers "not over" 5000 executions to be less than a lot of executions. Nor do I care to debate a person who does not think that those who drown while seeking escape from a tyrannical regime, which considers an effort to emigrate to be a criminal act, to be something less than a state-ordered execution. For anybody else who wants to read of Castro's history of violence, here's a start....

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Ug_wkzkmiSQJ:www.cubaarchive.org/downloads/CA22.pdf+Cuba+archive+Castro+murdered&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

Posted by Will Allen | February 25, 2008 9:07 PM

"harvest their organs."

Can I just say how much I hate this term? It's bad enough when Kristof's writing his stupid 'harvest the whales!' op-ed, but when we're referring to people's organs it's even worse. Ugh. All mankind may be as grass, but we are not bloody fields of wheat.

Posted by Dan S. | February 25, 2008 9:22 PM

By the way, this is how Human Rights Watch described Mr. Thomas' certainty of his estimate...

"Historian Hugh Thomas, who acknowledged the impossibility of knowing precisely how many executions and other human rights violations had occurred, estimated that by early 1961, the Cuban government had "probably" executed some 2,000 Cubans, while by 1970, the government had, "perhaps," executed 5,000. "

Posted by Will Allen | February 25, 2008 9:22 PM

It's immoral for any government to harvest any part of any human body without the consent of that individual. It does not matter to what good that body part may be put.

Soylent Green is people!

Posted by Just Karl | February 25, 2008 9:31 PM

The reason we don't harvest organs from criminals that have been executed is because they cannot give their free consent. Someone who is in prisoner by definition cannot give free consent.

We have had requests by prisoners slated for execution to donate their organs as some kind of atonement for what they have done. Even so we cannot collect their organs because of the issue of consent.

I think this is the right way because such a situation is open to too much abuse

Malaysia

Posted by jasbir | February 25, 2008 9:40 PM

The reason we don't harvest organs from criminals that have been executed is because they cannot give their free consent. Someone who is in prisoner by definition cannot give free consent.

This stands even if prisoners slated for execution want to donate their organs as some kind of atonement for what they have done. Even so we cannot collect their organs because of the issue of consent.

I think this is the right way because such a situation is open to too much abuse

Posted by jasbir | February 25, 2008 9:42 PM

Mr. Allen,

Ms. O'Grady of the Wall Street Journal is a liar with no credibility whatsoever. i wouldn't trust her to watch my dog. If you have read any of what she has to say about other Latin American regimes, then you can judge her credibility when it comes to Cuba, which is nil.

Yes, of course Mr. Thomas' estimates lack certainty. That was my point of pointing out that he's a conservative historian. His 5,000 estimate is a _high end estimate_. The number of documented executions in Cuba is closer to 2,000.

I suppose, since you didn't respond to my point, that you consider that the French Resistance executed too many Nazi collaborators too (more than twice as many as the Cubans.) Poor little Nazis. I will say again, the executions in Castro's Cuba took place in the immediate aftermath of a tyranny, a war in which many abuses were committed by the government forces, and then of a foreign invasion. They are directly comparable to the executions of Nazis in France, and they were justified on that basis at the time.

I don't intend to debate someone who makes up vicious lies about a government that has been persecuted by the United States for half a century, and then runs away when asked for some evidence.

Posted by Hector | February 25, 2008 9:43 PM

This is another situation--along with the contemporary debate about torture--where consequentialism utterly fails. Any six year old could tell you that we should never torture and we should never take another person's organs against his will. It takes a PhD in philosophy to so thoroughly contort the world that the consequences of these abominations appear to have value.

Just goes to show . . . Consequentialism is a false approach to ethics. Deontology is the way to go.

Posted by southpaw | February 25, 2008 9:46 PM

People who die fleeing a tyrannical government certainly should count for something but to lump them under "capital punishment" is to make a mockery out of proper statistical categorization.

Posted by dbt | February 25, 2008 9:56 PM

No one should have an economic interest in exacting punishment. "Harvesting" organs is language that betrays economic interest (ours, the survivors), and is repugnant for that reason. So are privatized prisons, for that matter.

Posted by Rob Knapp | February 25, 2008 11:22 PM

Hey, the Adverts had this nailed 30 years ago!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKG2rG-s29M

Posted by ScottF | February 26, 2008 12:04 AM

Executions of criminals are simply ridiculous, logically. It achieves absolutely nothing. Which is why morons like this Wood end up arguing ridiculous concepts like organ donations. Obviously Wood is a complete idiot.

The radical Transhumanist position is that, in a rational society of sentient entities (which, of course, will never exist in the human species), punishment is illogical and incorrect. The rational ordering of a sentient society would, first, insure that no one becomes a criminal in the first place, by eliminating the notion of the "nuclear family" having sole responsibility in producing offspring capable of functioning in the society. In early tribal societies, everyone was responsible for training young humans to be effective, functional members of society. The tribe couldn't afford serious numbers of malcontents. That whole system simply doesn't exist today; the so-called "educational establishment" is merely a means of producing consumers and workers for the industrial society. The end result is the kind of idiots one sees everywhere in human society today.

Second, for those who "fall through the cracks", they would be placed under control - but not incarceration - and retrained to eliminate the criminal traits not properly dealt with in the first place - while also being trained for gainful employment in order to make appropriate restitution to the victims, if feasible.

For those afflicted with a physically based mental ailment causing criminal behavior, which renders them uncontrollable in a social context, they would be incarcerated as humanely as feasible until appropriate treatments were developed to cure the condition (which at this point and in a rational society wouldn't be more than a couple decades at most).

The present "justice" system is simply barbarous and pathetically ineffective, even leaving out the complete nonsense of the term "justice" (a non-concept). It's sole benefit is analogous to the military-industrial complex: a bunch of people get careers and paychecks out of it at the expense of the taxpayer and everyone else. The "law-enforcement-security complex" is as much a farce as the MIC.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 26, 2008 1:54 AM

Isn't the deed usually done by pumping poison or running lots of volts through the condemned? Neither seems likely to leave the organs in good shape.

I think the electric chair might have recently gone out of fashion, but lethal injection and the gas chamber also seem likely to damage most of the organs you'd want.

Posted by aleks | February 26, 2008 4:19 AM

Hector, you fool, the statistics in the article were not produced by O'Grady. Attacking her credibility is meaningless. I wouldn't trust you to watch a parakeet.

Posted by Will Allen | February 26, 2008 11:03 AM

dbt, I was speaking more from the vantage point of ethical categorization. I'd say that making the attempt to emigrate a criminal act, and thus putting people desperate to do so in a stituation where they drown, is no different than putting political prisiners behind electrified wire, whereupon they are elecrtrocuted when they try to escape. Of course, Hector is likely quite sure it was only the equivalent of Nazis who were eaten by sharks.

Posted by Will Allen | February 26, 2008 11:15 AM

Hey Will Allen, how many people died in police custody in the world's largest 'democracy' last year?

http://www.genocidewatch.org/IndiaTorturebypoliceisfrequentanddeadly5august2004.htm

That sort of rampant lawlessness and brutality surpasses any police torture that went on in Cuba during the 1960s and 1970s (and several Cuban officials were actually court-martialed for torturing, you know.)

And let's not forget that at the same time as Cuba was repressing its domestic enemies, the US had legal segregation, was turning fire hoses on peaceful black protesters, was torturing people to death in the Tiger Cages outside Saigon, and was using napalm on helpless villagers. Let's not even go into what the British were doing in Belfast, the French in Algiers or the Israelis in Gaza.

Posted by Hector | February 26, 2008 12:35 PM

Yet, Hector, it was Castro who declared that leaving Castro's presence was a criminal act with the de facto sentence of death. Bull Connor was an awful human being, but he didn't deem it a crime to leave for Chicago, and see to it that trying to do so greatly risked death. That's what you make excuses for.

Posted by Will Allen | February 26, 2008 3:30 PM

Mr. Allen,

The penalty for illegal emigration from Cuba is one to three years in prison, not death, though you may talk about the 'de facto' penalty all you want. Cuba is a nation under siege from the United States and has been for fifty years. I suspect that when Byzantium was under siege they meted out harsh punishment to people who wanted to defect to the Turks, as well they should have.

I think that Cuba's laws about emigration today are too restrictive, often cruelly so, and have been enforced too harshly. But on the other hand, given that Western countries have been bleeding developing countries dry of their best educated people, I am not particularly sympathetic to an unrestricted 'right' to emigrate.

Posted by Hector | February 26, 2008 4:23 PM

Hector, it appears that you are an advocate of slavery, given you think that a person can rightfully belong to a political elite. If you had merely stated that was the case at the beginning of the thread, a lot of unecessary verbiage could have been avoided. I have no desire for a dialogue with those that support slavery, so I will just say goodbye.

Posted by Will Allen | February 26, 2008 4:58 PM

That's so silly I'm not even going to bother answering. But then again, I suppose I did start the slanging by implying that you were a Nazi-lover. Sorry.

Posted by Hector | February 26, 2008 5:24 PM

This is an interesting, if incredibily ill-informed, thread. But they all are when we are just making things up as we go along, right?

So on to my point. I work in the organ transplant field. An organ donor who is, or who has been, incarcerated anywhere is considered a high-risk donor for all of the reasons you can imagine, especially the possibility of HIV or HBV. Anyone who is currently incarcerated would be almost an automatic rule-out, because you simply can't be sure that they are free of these viruses as of TODAY. There isn't a transplant surgeon in the country who would accept such an organ in most cases.

I hedge my bets here a bit because there are rare, desperate circumstances where such an organ might be considered, but they are rare indeed. They are also occasionally considered if the prisoner is making a living donation (a kidney, lets say) to a family member.

So now add to the above the manner of execution, regardless of which one, and all such organs, in every case without exception, would not be acceptable for transplant. (sorry for the run-on sentence)

There are 100,000 people currently on the waiting list for an organ in the US. The single best and most responsible way to solve this problem is for each of us to tell our loved ones that we do or do not want to be an organ donor. You would make my job easier and you would increase the number of donated organs in the US, perhaps by double, just by doing that one simple thing.

Posted by SDDBS | February 27, 2008 1:40 PM

This is an interesting, if incredibily ill-informed, thread. But they all are when we are just making things up as we go along, right?

So on to my point. I work in the organ transplant field. An organ donor who is, or who has been, incarcerated anywhere is considered a high-risk donor for all of the reasons you can imagine, especially the possibility of HIV or HBV. Anyone who is currently incarcerated would be almost an automatic rule-out, because you simply can't be sure that they are free of these viruses as of TODAY. There isn't a transplant surgeon in the country who would accept such an organ in most cases.

I hedge my bets here a bit because there are rare, desperate circumstances where such an organ might be considered, but they are rare indeed. They are also occasionally considered if the prisoner is making a living donation (a kidney, lets say) to a family member.

So now add to the above the manner of execution, regardless of which one, and all such organs, in every case without exception, would not be acceptable for transplant. (sorry for the run-on sentence)

There are 100,000 people currently on the waiting list for an organ in the US. The single best and most responsible way to solve this problem is for each of us to tell our loved ones that we do or do not want to be an organ donor. You would make my job easier and you would increase the number of donated organs in the US, perhaps by double, just by doing that one simple thing.

Posted by SDDBS | February 27, 2008 1:41 PM

This is an interesting, if incredibily ill-informed, thread. But they all are when we are just making things up as we go along, right?

So on to my point. I work in the organ transplant field. An organ donor who is, or who has been, incarcerated anywhere is considered a high-risk donor for all of the reasons you can imagine, especially the possibility of HIV or HBV. Anyone who is currently incarcerated would be almost an automatic rule-out, because you simply can't be sure that they are free of these viruses as of TODAY. There isn't a transplant surgeon in the country who would accept such an organ in most cases.

I hedge my bets here a bit because there are rare, desperate circumstances where such an organ might be considered, but they are rare indeed. They are also occasionally considered if the prisoner is making a living donation (a kidney, lets say) to a family member.

So now add to the above the manner of execution, regardless of which one, and all such organs, in every case without exception, would not be acceptable for transplant. (sorry for the run-on sentence)

There are 100,000 people currently on the waiting list for an organ in the US. The single best and most responsible way to solve this problem is for each of us to tell our loved ones that we do or do not want to be an organ donor. You would make my job easier and you would increase the number of donated organs in the US, perhaps by double, just by doing that one simple thing.

Posted by SDDBS | February 27, 2008 1:42 PM

This is an interesting, if incredibily ill-informed, thread. But they all are when we are just making things up as we go along, right?

So on to my point. I work in the organ transplant field. An organ donor who is, or who has been, incarcerated anywhere is considered a high-risk donor for all of the reasons you can imagine, especially the possibility of HIV or HBV. Anyone who is currently incarcerated would be almost an automatic rule-out, because you simply can't be sure that they are free of these viruses as of TODAY. There isn't a transplant surgeon in the country who would accept such an organ in most cases.

I hedge my bets here a bit because there are rare, desperate circumstances where such an organ might be considered, but they are rare indeed. They are also occasionally considered if the prisoner is making a living donation (a kidney, lets say) to a family member.

So now add to the above the manner of execution, regardless of which one, and all such organs, in every case without exception, would not be acceptable for transplant. (sorry for the run-on sentence)

There are 100,000 people currently on the waiting list for an organ in the US. The single best and most responsible way to solve this problem is for each of us to tell our loved ones that we do or do not want to be an organ donor. You would make my job easier and you would increase the number of donated organs in the US, perhaps by double, just by doing that one simple thing.

Posted by SDDBS | February 27, 2008 1:42 PM

This is an interesting, if incredibily ill-informed, thread. But they all are when we are just making things up as we go along, right?

So on to my point. I work in the organ transplant field. An organ donor who is, or who has been, incarcerated anywhere is considered a high-risk donor for all of the reasons you can imagine, especially the possibility of HIV or HBV. Anyone who is currently incarcerated would be almost an automatic rule-out, because you simply can't be sure that they are free of these viruses as of TODAY. There isn't a transplant surgeon in the country who would accept such an organ in most cases.

I hedge my bets here a bit because there are rare, desperate circumstances where such an organ might be considered, but they are rare indeed. They are also occasionally considered if the prisoner is making a living donation (a kidney, lets say) to a family member.

So now add to the above the manner of execution, regardless of which one, and all such organs, in every case without exception, would not be acceptable for transplant. (sorry for the run-on sentence)

There are 100,000 people currently on the waiting list for an organ in the US. The single best and most responsible way to solve this problem is for each of us to tell our loved ones that we do or do not want to be an organ donor. You would make my job easier and you would increase the number of donated organs in the US, perhaps by double, just by doing that one simple thing.

Posted by SDDBS | February 27, 2008 1:42 PM

This is an interesting, if incredibily ill-informed, thread. But they all are when we are just making things up as we go along, right?

So on to my point. I work in the organ transplant field. An organ donor who is, or who has been, incarcerated anywhere is considered a high-risk donor for all of the reasons you can imagine, especially the possibility of HIV or HBV. Anyone who is currently incarcerated would be almost an automatic rule-out, because you simply can't be sure that they are free of these viruses as of TODAY. There isn't a transplant surgeon in the country who would accept such an organ in most cases.

I hedge my bets here a bit because there are rare, desperate circumstances where such an organ might be considered, but they are rare indeed. They are also occasionally considered if the prisoner is making a living donation (a kidney, lets say) to a family member.

So now add to the above the manner of execution, regardless of which one, and all such organs, in every case without exception, would not be acceptable for transplant. (sorry for the run-on sentence)

There are 100,000 people currently on the waiting list for an organ in the US. The single best and most responsible way to solve this problem is for each of us to tell our loved ones that we do or do not want to be an organ donor. You would make my job easier and you would increase the number of donated organs in the US, perhaps by double, just by doing that one simple thing.

Posted by SDDBS | February 27, 2008 1:42 PM

This is an interesting, if incredibily ill-informed, thread. But they all are when we are just making things up as we go along, right?

So on to my point. I work in the organ transplant field. An organ donor who is, or who has been, incarcerated anywhere is considered a high-risk donor for all of the reasons you can imagine, especially the possibility of HIV or HBV. Anyone who is currently incarcerated would be almost an automatic rule-out, because you simply can't be sure that they are free of these viruses as of TODAY. There isn't a transplant surgeon in the country who would accept such an organ in most cases.

I hedge my bets here a bit because there are rare, desperate circumstances where such an organ might be considered, but they are rare indeed. They are also occasionally considered if the prisoner is making a living donation (a kidney, lets say) to a family member.

So now add to the above the manner of execution, regardless of which one, and all such organs, in every case without exception, would not be acceptable for transplant. (sorry for the run-on sentence)

There are 100,000 people currently on the waiting list for an organ in the US. The single best and most responsible way to solve this problem is for each of us to tell our loved ones that we do or do not want to be an organ donor. You would make my job easier and you would increase the number of donated organs in the US, perhaps by double, just by doing that one simple thing.

Posted by SDDBS | February 27, 2008 1:42 PM

This is an interesting, if incredibily ill-informed, thread. But they all are when we are just making things up as we go along, right?

So on to my point. I work in the organ transplant field. An organ donor who is, or who has been, incarcerated anywhere is considered a high-risk donor for all of the reasons you can imagine, especially the possibility of HIV or HBV. Anyone who is currently incarcerated would be almost an automatic rule-out, because you simply can't be sure that they are free of these viruses as of TODAY. There isn't a transplant surgeon in the country who would accept such an organ in most cases.

I hedge my bets here a bit because there are rare, desperate circumstances where such an organ might be considered, but they are rare indeed. They are also occasionally considered if the prisoner is making a living donation (a kidney, lets say) to a family member.

So now add to the above the manner of execution, regardless of which one, and all such organs, in every case without exception, would not be acceptable for transplant. (sorry for the run-on sentence)

There are 100,000 people currently on the waiting list for an organ in the US. The single best and most responsible way to solve this problem is for each of us to tell our loved ones that we do or do not want to be an organ donor. You would make my job easier and you would increase the number of donated organs in the US, perhaps by double, just by doing that one simple thing.

Posted by SDDBS | February 27, 2008 1:42 PM

This is an interesting, if incredibily ill-informed, thread. But they all are when we are just making things up as we go along, right?

So on to my point. I work in the organ transplant field. An organ donor who is, or who has been, incarcerated anywhere is considered a high-risk donor for all of the reasons you can imagine, especially the possibility of HIV or HBV. Anyone who is currently incarcerated would be almost an automatic rule-out, because you simply can't be sure that they are free of these viruses as of TODAY. There isn't a transplant surgeon in the country who would accept such an organ in most cases.

I hedge my bets here a bit because there are rare, desperate circumstances where such an organ might be considered, but they are rare indeed. They are also occasionally considered if the prisoner is making a living donation (a kidney, lets say) to a family member.

So now add to the above the manner of execution, regardless of which one, and all such organs, in every case without exception, would not be acceptable for transplant. (sorry for the run-on sentence)

There are 100,000 people currently on the waiting list for an organ in the US. The single best and most responsible way to solve this problem is for each of us to tell our loved ones that we do or do not want to be an organ donor. You would make my job easier and you would increase the number of donated organs in the US, perhaps by double, just by doing that one simple thing.

Posted by SDDBS | February 27, 2008 1:42 PM

This is an interesting, if incredibily ill-informed, thread. But they all are when we are just making things up as we go along, right?

So on to my point. I work in the organ transplant field. An organ donor who is, or who has been, incarcerated anywhere is considered a high-risk donor for all of the reasons you can imagine, especially the possibility of HIV or HBV. Anyone who is currently incarcerated would be almost an automatic rule-out, because you simply can't be sure that they are free of these viruses as of TODAY. There isn't a transplant surgeon in the country who would accept such an organ in most cases.

I hedge my bets here a bit because there are rare, desperate circumstances where such an organ might be considered, but they are rare indeed. They are also occasionally considered if the prisoner is making a living donation (a kidney, lets say) to a family member.

So now add to the above the manner of execution, regardless of which one, and all such organs, in every case without exception, would not be acceptable for transplant. (sorry for the run-on sentence)

There are 100,000 people currently on the waiting list for an organ in the US. The single best and most responsible way to solve this problem is for each of us to tell our loved ones that we do or do not want to be an organ donor. You would make my job easier and you would increase the number of donated organs in the US, perhaps by double, just by doing that one simple thing.

Posted by SDDBS | February 27, 2008 1:42 PM