Harvesting and Trafficking, Part I

September 9, 2007

A few mornings ago I harvested a ripe red tomato — off my neighbors’ vine. It was on our side of the fence, beckoning me. I did not presume consent, however; my neighbors had told us a few days ago that they were leaving, and that we should pick any ripe tomatoes we wanted in their absence, since the tomatoes would be wasted otherwise. After the harvesting, though, I looked over to their garage and was surprised to see the door open with a strange van in the bay. My feelings of pleasure at the possession of the tomato were suddenly mingled with the discomfort of possibly having been mistaken as a thief.

There can be no true equating of tomatoes with kidneys, livers, or other precious human organs that are transplanted, but there are some elements common to both. One is the language: we call taking a kidney, a liver, a heart, lungs, and corneas (to name a few), “harvesting.” The harvested organs are transplanted into recipients. This seems a good thing, especially when people’s lives are changed for the better, even saved, by such transplants. Harvesting is typically done with consent of the donor — either informed consent or “presumed consent,” where the organs are taken from deceased persons who have not “opted out” (signed a form that states no organ donation is to take place) — or the family of the donor. There are, however, some murky cases, where harvesting and trafficking in human organs merge.

In the United States, selling organs is against the law. Organ transplants from federal prisoners are not permitted, except to immediate family members. Such is not always the case in other countries, however. Since the 1980’s, there have been reports that China has executed prisoners and removed their organs without consent of prisoners or families. (U. S. Department of State, “Sale of Human Organs in China”).

British cardiothoracic (and transplant) surgeon, Tom Treasure, wrote this in “The Falun Gong, organ transplantation, the holocaust and ourselves,” in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, (March, 2007):

It is now accepted as fact that the organs of executed criminals in China are used for transplantation. It is claimed that they consent, but can this be freely given? That apart, an argument of the greater good and lesser evil can be invoked: if an individual has lost the right to life under judicial process, perhaps he has also lost the right to have his kidneys buried with him. Why should they be wasted when two innocent victims of renal failure could have an improved and extended life? But there is a still greater concern. As part of an expansion in religious activity into the ideological vacuum left by the collapse of communism, a spiritual movement called the Falun Gong has grown. Practitioners meet to perform their exercises and to meditate. They are pacifist by inclination and seek to meld modern science with Chinese traditions. It is hard to determine why they have attracted such disfavour but they are cast as seditious and undesirable. It seems that they are incarcerated in their tens of thousands in order to correct their way of thinking. Apparently when arrested, they are routinely blood tested. There is no reason to believe that it is for the benefit of the Falun Gong but blood group matching is critical to organ donation. The suspicion that Falun Gong practitioners are a source of organs is central to the investigative work of David Matas and David Kilgour who have formulated the allegation.

On this side of the world, it is hard to know exactly what is happening in China regarding organ transplantation and the Falun Gong. According to Dr. Treasure, one Chinese institution reported 647 liver transplants in approximately one year; this adds credence to other reports of executions-for-organs that are surfacing. Some of the “transplant tourists” to China and other countries are Americans, desperate for a functioning organ to replace that which has been lost. This “open market” for organs needs to be a transparent market, however. To participate in a process that deprives other humans of their human rights, including that basic right of life itself, is a weighty matter. Though well-functioning bodies beckon us, we need to stay our hand until we know the situation, and are assured that we are not causing harm by our actions. And true assurance cannot come from any who profit by this system.

What can one person do? Audra Ang, of the Associated Press, reported (21 April 2007) the story of one woman, Meng Zhaoping, a “53-year-old apple farmer from the fringe of the Gobi desert.” Meng has tirelessly sought information about her son, who was both convicted and executed in January 2005, for killing a man with a knife during a brawl. His mother never saw her son’s body; a hospital van took his corpse (No. 207) to a crematorium. Although she has no hard evidence, Meng believes her son’s body was used as a source of donor organs. The article describes some of her angst:

Clutching a grimy tote bag filled with legal documents and photos of her executed son, Meng Zhaoping is trying to argue her way past a security guard at the provincial high court for the second day in a row.

“Let me talk to someone! Give me justice!” Meng shouts as the guard blocks her way.

Meng is not the only one who cries out for justice in this dark place of organs taken from one human and placed in another’s body for a price. This is a market, and there are many who benefit. Where is William Wilberforce when we need him? Someone needs to shed some light here. Tom Treasure has given us his carefully crafted essay, built on investigative work by two others. Meng is asking questions, and writers like Audra Ang are reporting. It is time for “WWE’s”— William Wilberforce Equivalents in this age, to inform the public, help right egregious wrongs, and secure the guarantee of basic human rights to fellow humans caught in this world-wide web.