Death Row Inmates Can't Donate Organs

[Tom Schindler]

Killing is wrong in every instance.

I will have to agree with this statement, up to a point. Killing another human being is the most vulgar and disgusting act someone can perform.



That statement ends when I am faced with someone that wants to kill me. I will kill them before they kill me. There is nothing vulgar about self defense of myself and the defense of my loved ones.



As for the death penalty, I am on the fence on this one. While I do not want to pay for the upkeep of some scum, I am terrified with the fact that an innocent person could be killed.



Then lets look at the fact that mentally insane people can not (or is it should not) be executed. Anyone that kills people for fun is mentally insane.





Tom

 

[Richard L]

Interesting article I found on the subject:

The U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Prisons said in a program statement that deceased federal inmates (inmates who died in prison-as distinguished from executed prisoners) are permitted to donate their organs if they wish. This same statement also clarifies that an inmate can be a living donor as long as the recipient is a member of the inmate's immediate family, and providing the family bears the cost of the procedure, but this too is an overarching rule, and specific laws about living donations in prisons vary from state to state (Meslin, Eric M. Ph.D. "Death Row Organ Donation."). The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is a "non-profit, scientific and educational organization that administers the nations only Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), established by the congress in 1984." (LINK to UNOS website) The UNOS ethics committee "opposes any strategy or proposed statute regarding organ donation from condemned prisoners until all of the potential ethical concerns have been satisfactorily addressed." Because UNOS is the only organization ever to manage the OPTN and to facilitate the organ matching and donation process in the United States, their stance on the issue is very important, and probably one of the main reasons that all states currently prohibit procurement from death row prisoners and do not allow these prisoners to donate after their deaths even if it is in accordance with their wishes.

...Rich

 

[H D]

An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.



That's the best pun I could come up with for this topic...

 

[Thomas Rogers]

KL,



Might have had too many negatives. What I was trying to say is that I am a-okay with inmates donating their viable organs. What I am not okay is if they, or their families get some compensation for doing so.



TJR

 

[Bill V]

What if, on the morning before the guy's to be executed, another death row inmate were to "unexpectedly" shiv him, "without his knowledge", with organ harvesting professionals "just happening" to be nearby? Are the organs legally usable? If so, let it go down on the books "officially" as a prison murder, not capital punishment.

 

[Richard L]

Bill V,

Read my post above.



It is appearently less of a legal issue with the prisons as it is the fact that UNOS and OPTN will not accept organs from condemned prisoners. Their statement: The UNOS ethics committee "opposes any strategy or proposed statute regarding organ donation from condemned prisoners until all of the potential ethical concerns have been satisfactorily addressed." Since OPTN is the sole agency that does organ donor cross matches, there is no other source to match donor organs with patients who need transplants.



...Rich

 

[Mark K 2]

What if, on the morning before the guy's to be executed, another death row inmate were to "unexpectedly" shiv him, "without his knowledge", with organ harvesting professionals "just happening" to be nearby? Are the organs legally usable?

In my experience as a nurse and medic, unless the donor dies in a harvesting hospital with a harvest surgical team ready to go, the organs are no good. That little "DONOR" sticker on your drivers license doesn't mean a thing. The hospital staff a) doesn't look at it, b) requires a next-of-kin to be present to sign papers in order to harvest, and c) won't harvest without the right papers in hand. If all the right stuff doesn't fall into place at the right time, a harvest won't occur.

 

[Bill V]

OK, yes, but...



...The inmate could be "granted a pardon" moments before the shivving, making him no longer a "condemned" prisoner...

...Shortly before the shivving, the shivver could "read in a book in the prison library" information about what types of injuries are instantly lethal vs. slowly lethal, and thus inflict a fatal injury which would allow the until-recently about-to-be-executed prisoner to survive long enough to get to a hospital with the organs still viable, where, "by coincidence", the shivved prisoners family are present, ready to consent, with signed papers already in hand...

 

[Richard L]

Bill V.,

The inmate could be "granted a pardon" moments before the shivving, making him no longer a "condemned" prisoner...

...Shortly before the shivving, the shivver could "read in a book in the prison library" information about what types of injuries are instantly lethal vs. slowly lethal, and thus inflict a fatal injury which would allow the until-recently about-to-be-executed prisoner to survive long enough to get to a hospital with the organs still viable, where, "by coincidence", the shivved prisoners family are present, ready to consent, with signed papers already in hand...

Wow Bill, that's kind a long hypothetical stretch and totally unrealistic, so I don't think anyone would make a law to cover such a far-fetched scenario...:grin:



Even with a pardon, the release of the prisoner is not immediate. It often takes days or even weeks until all the paperwork is completed and verified before he is released. During that time, his status in prison does not change and he is still a condemmed death row inmate.



Also, most prisons separate death row inmates from the normal prison population and the closer they get to their execution date, the more restricted access they have until they are pretty much in solitary confinement for the last few weeks or months.



...Rich

 

[Bill V]

Rich, I fully understand and agree. But I just have to think that if the ends are just and this beneficial, and if the intent of the person to be executed are legit, some means of making it work should be able to be found. I know the old "th ends can't justify the means" saying--but try telling that to someone whose life is hanging on their ability to make it off the organ waiting list...

 

[Richard L]

Bill V,

My granddaughter had 3 Liver Transplants, so I know how desparate and helpless people on the waiting list for an organ are. Her second transplant was down to the last few hours or she would have died.



Unfortunately, there is little we can do to speed up this process, nor our we allowed to make ethical judgements when it involves a condemmed prisoner. I suspect that someday, they may figure out how to legally and ethicly harvest organs from condemmed prisoners, but even that may be limited.



As it stands now, most doctors feel they would be violating they'r Hypocratic Oath, to do not harm, if they were to harvest certain organs from a living, condemmed prisoner. Think about it? Could a doctor be sued by the prisoner's family if the condemmed prisoner dies while the organs are being harvested...even though he was to die immediately after the organs were donated. To many undefined grey areas that most doctors do not want to be involved with.



...Rich

 

[Kevin Lang]

Killing another human being is the most vulgar and disgusting act someone can perform.

There are far more vulgar and heinous things that can be performed :throwup:

The UNOS ethics committee "opposes any strategy or proposed statute regarding organ donation from condemned prisoners until all of the potential ethical concerns have been satisfactorily addressed."

I get the idea that this is a wishy-washy way of saying that the committee won't allow organs to be harvested from condemned prisoners whose sentence is fulfilled, (ie that the state has killed 'em.) though it restricts donation on all forms of death.



I don't see why a non-condemned prisoner who gets knifed in prison can donate his organs, but a condemned prisoner cannot. The risk of prison corruption causing people to be killed off wouldn't be any greater if both "types" of prisoners could donate, I don't think it would lead to death row inmates getting knifed in the mess hall before their execution date more than other issues would.



Also, isn't it hypocritical that a death-row prisoner can't donate his organs, but a multiple-life-sentence prisoner without parole can? The state is killing both of them, only it doesn't get its hands dirty on one of them.

 

[Richard L]

KL,

I understand your feeling that the UNOS decision is wishy-washy. I don't think it's right either when people die for need of a transplant, but organs are not available. To be fair to the UNOS, Organ transplants has always been an ethical issue from the begining. They have to look at all the ethical issues and they obviously see a lot of grey areas that they don't want to get involved in any of these controversies. I suspect that over time, and with some new laws, things will ease up and condemned prisoners will be able to donate organs and facilities would be made available to harvest these organs.



To be realistic, there are not that many Legal executions being done, so the number of potential donors would not increase significantly, when compared to the number of people killed in accidents or from other medical causes.



...Rich