Human Organ Trade Banned – China
In May 2, 2007, China officially banned the trade in human organs, China’s state media reported. The Asian giant is often accused of heavily involving in the harvesting human organs of executed prisoners for organ transplant surgeries.
Is harvesting human organs for transplant in this way ethical? After all, lives are being saved from such transplant surgeries. Well, the debate on this subject matter by various interest and human right groups is ongoing and yet to be settled.
The new law and regulations issued by the State Council, China’s powerful cabinet prohibit all organizations and individuals from trading in human organs in any form, the official state media, Xinhua news agency reported.
Any doctor or surgeon found to be involved in illegal trading of human organs for transplant surgeries will have his/her medical license revoked. Clinics and hospitals will be suspended from doing transplant operations for at least three years if convicted of defying the law on organ transplant trade.
Fines have been set at about ten times the value of the outlawed trading of human organs and government officials convicted for trading in human organs will be sacked immediately.
International human right groups have long accused China country of harvesting human organs from executed prisoners for organ transplant surgeries without their consent or that of their family. China’s hospitals too have also been similarly accused of stealing human organs from road accident victims and other dead patients without telling family members.
The Chinese government has always denied any of these accusations, saying that most organs are voluntarily donated whom the donors have given their consent. Foreign patients facing compatible shortage of human organs in their home countries have flocked to China where human organs are plentiful and the transplant surgeries are relatively less expensive.
China has the world’s second largest number of human organ transplant performed after the United States of America with about 5,000 transplant operations performed every year. However, if you look at the population of China, the world’s largest population, the number of transplant operations is still relatively small.The new law does not apply to transplants of human tissue such as cells, corneas and bone marrow.
Do you think that China’s ban on the human organ’s trade is a move in the right dierection? Are there better ways to harvest human organs ethically? After all, the donors are already dead and their organs will be wasted when buried or cremated along with them. Why not let the dead bring life to the living?
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