If you need an organ for transplant, and you need it fast, the place most likely to accommodate your need is the People’s Republic of China. But the organ may have come with a cost—the hastened death of an innocent. For years now reports have been coming out of China that this one billion strong Maoist dictatorship harvests organs from living humans with the goal of selling them to needy Westerners with cash.
Here in America, medical ethics over the last half a century have been in state of fundamental transition, an issue we address at The Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy. For some time, life advocates in America have raised concern about the potential spread of organ harvesting in America, by physicians who take a low view of perpetuating indefinitely the lives of terminal, comatose, or poor “quality of life” patients, and who see opportunities to save the lives of some individuals at the expense of others.
This debate has again come to the attention of the public with the trial of a highly respected transplant physician who has been charged with hastening the death of a patient for the purpose of organ harvesting. CNN describes it as “a far-reaching case that could impact the nation’s organ donation industry.”