The Other Michael

For those who haven't read it, the book has a society where the demand for organs kept pushing down the threshold for crimes that would qualify as a forced donor.

Anyone willing to have their organs harvested if convicted of a minor felony?

cheers,
Michael

Viti

Yes, I would have to agree with you when the elderly are involved as many would have sundry other health issues to deal with. IIRC, UNOS considers age and overall health (other than the organ health problems) when prioritizing the list...that may not be true though. I'll have to read up on it.

Loren Pechtel

Minor felony?!

How about too many traffic tickets?

Bob Stewart

A quotethen, So, the argument against using convicted capital offenders as organ donors, against their will, is that, if we were to allow this, the next thing we/you know running a red light will cost you one of your lungs and a kidney.

Bob Stewart

brighid

I don't think that is far fetched at all. Laws should be examined by the foreseeable abuses that will come of them. Prisoners shouldn't be used for organ donation simply because they committed a crime, violent or otherwise. TOO many people are wrongly convicted and the injustice of that is heinouse enough without forcing these men and women to give up BODY PARTS against their will.

I have experienced the abuse of power in the law enforcement and judicial end of things. There is no way on this Earth I would ever support a measure coercing any individual to forfeit their organs. The foreseeable abuse is so great that to embark on such a path is utterly unconscionable.

The abuses that have come the US Patriot Act should be enough to realize that those in power will abuse those they have power over.

Brighid

Bob Stewart

Responding to brighid said, No sane adult would suggest that a 'foreseeable abuse that will come of' of allowing convicted capital offenders to be used as organ donors against their will is the use of forced organ donation for traffic offences or even for felonies. So, you can't mean that that scenario is not far-fetched. What do you mean?

I chose convicted capital offenders (those sentenced to die) because they are going to be executed anyway. Rather than merely 'throwing away' their organs, these could be put to good use.

Bob Stewart

brighid

That has already been addressed. In Illinois 13 of 19 Death Row convicts have been exonerated and I don't doubt that similar injustices have been committed all over this nation, especially in places like Texas. We are ALL going to die anyway, so why not just force anyone who is a match to forfeit their organs? If Illinois is a reflection of rest of the nation it mean that the VAST majority of death row convicts are innocent of the crimes they have been convicted of. If the state can't get that right they should not be given the authority to forcibly remove organs for any human being.

Furthermore, when could this donation process happen? Before or after all of the appeals are exhausted? What if someone needed a kidney from one of these men before his appeal process begins? Do we take it from him and then later find out he was wrongly convicted as is far too often the case?

Put yourself in the shoes of a falsely accussed man and tell me what just end is being served by stealing your organs from you?

There is no reason to force any human being, guilty or innocent of a crime, to forfeit their organs so another can live. A much more viable and ethic solution to this dilemma is the harvesting of organs through stem cells.

As a cynic, as a person who has been falsely accussed and arrested, who knows how easy it is to be convicted of a crime one did not commit based on speculative, circumstantial "evidence" I have absolutely no confidence that this sort of arrangement wouldn't be abused in some cases. So yes, I am saying that someone incarcerated for too many traffic violations could forseeably be forced to donate organs if someone in power desired it to happen. ONE case of abuse is one too many and such a thing cannot be reversed.

Brighid

Loren Pechtel

Who said anything about one of?

Loren Pechtel

There is a demand for organs. That demand can be satisified from capital offenders. Thus there is an incentive to increase the range of crimes that are capital offenses.

scigirl

Was it Winston Churchill who said something like, "you can judge the morality of a society by how they treat their prisoners" ??

I don't care how many people need organs. Harvesting body parts by force from anyone, even evil people like Ted Bundy and Jerry Falwell - is just wrong. Any society that takes body parts from someone against their will is not a society I would like to live in, even if it would prolong all the smokers and drinkers of the world for a few years. :banghead:

Furthermore, if we did a better job educating people about organ donation, and encouraged them to donate when they died, we wouldn't need to rip kidneys out of prisoners. And furthermore, even if we did start doing that - we would still have a shortage of organs that are necessary for survival - like hearts or heart/lung sets.

scigirl