Cutting Prison Time for Organ Donors: Is This Ethical? Ch.7 pg 217
If an individual is arrested, charged and convicted of a crime, they should be required to do the time. No matter what, prison time is a punishment for committing a crime. What if a prisoner was given an option to donate a kidney in exchange for a reduction of time off their sentence?
In 2007, law makers in South Carolina wrote and introduced a bill that would reduce a prisoner’s sentence by 180 days in exchange for a kidney. Organ donors are in great demand with an emphasis on kidneys. In April 2009, there was a need of over 79,000 kidneys with an average wait time of 1,121 days. Over 10,551 people benefited from donors that year. In 2006, over four thousand people lost their lives because of a lack of donors (Lee, 2009).
An argument against this avenue of organ donation is that it is a violation of the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act. Under this act, the circumstances surrounding the harvesting of organs make this a violation of Federal Law, specifically under the clause of valuable consideration. In this case, valuable consideration would be a sentence reduction. Further, medical professionals have indicated that the prison population is a breeding ground for infectious diseases that include but are not limited to HIV and Hepatitis. Still doctors have indicated that testing is not conclusive enough to reduce the possibility of infectious disease incurred by the organ recipient (Stone, 2007).
Even though this is a violation of Federal Law and ethically wrong, possibilities exist to help people in need. Imagine the number of people that could benefit from this method. The prisons are over flowing with potential donors. Attorney General Eric Holder has acknowledged the over population in prisons and has offered to overturn the mandatory long term drug sentences for low level drug offenders (Yost & Elias, 2013).
Why not language a bill in such a manner that examines the possibility of offering the option to selected prisoners? Inmates who are currently serving time for committing violent crimes, severe drug related offenses or those involving manslaughter as a result of DUI should be eliminated from the discussion. However, why not target the so called country club prisons, low security or minimum security prisons that do not have perimeter fences and foster work programs (Federal Bureau of Prisons, n.d.)? Those prisoners are not hard core criminals and might have the health record to support such a program.
The bill introduced by the lawmakers in South Carolina failed however; it did open the door to serious discussions. It goes without saying that selected prisoners identified for this program should be severally scrutinized. Organ recipients should be informed that the organ they are receiving is from a prisoner and have the choice to refuse it. It would be morally wrong to over look the possibility of extending the life of another because it might be too difficult to re-write a law.
References
Federal Bureau of Prisons (n.d.). Prison Types and general Information. Retrieved from
http://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/
Lee, E. C. (2009). Trading Kidneys for Prison Time: When Two Contradictory Legal Traditions
Intersect, Which One has the Right-of-Way? Retrieved from
http://usf.usfca.edu/law/academic/journals/lawreview/printissues/v43i3/Lee.pdf
Stone, G. (2007). Give a Kidney to Shorten Your Prison Sentence? Retrieved from
Yost, P. & Elias, P. (2013). Holder goes after mandatory federal drug sentences. Retrieved from
http://news.yahoo.com/holder-goes-mandatory-federal-drug-sentences-214315301.html
