Anachronistic West Challenges Chinese Organ Donors

Here's an interesting story I saw today on the BBC news site and I welcome any and all comments. It seems the West has pretty good evidence that the Chinese are using the organs of executed criminals for transplants -- without the prior consent of the criminal.

My take on this is as follows:

Hurrah China! At least the deaths will mean something. Of course, one has to separate the issues of 1) removing the organs without consent, 2) is executing criminals just, and 3) are the executed criminals simply enemies of the state. In fact, here we are only dealing with #1, since 2 and 3 will not change simply by stopping the use of the organs.

I believe that the negative reaction by many in the West (although, interestingly, not those who need a new organ) is anachronistic with its origins in religion. Without a religious basis for the discussion there can be really no argument that China is fully justified to do whatever it wants with the criminals bodies, even by Western standards. In addition, I argue that it is hypocritical for the West to treat dangerous criminals like animals and then argue that they still have human rights (this is especially true in the US where there is still capital punishment).

When we die, we die. When we are dead, we have no need of our bodies or anything else, for that matter. We live on, not in the rotting flesh of our decomposing corpses, nor as some disembodied spirit floating in a happy hunting grounds. We live on only in the memories of our friends and families and anyone else whose life we have touched. For that our bodies are not necessary. It is only the anachronistic concepts of religion that argue differently. Since China is officially an atheistic country, they have no reason to bow to such archaic religous ideas. There is, in fact, no reason to preserve the bodies other than to recycle the parts to help others live happier lives.

There are many, if not most, in the West that believe that the criminals, especially those on death row, do not deserve the same rights as the rest of us. I have heard it said many times that these people have forfeited their rights when they committed the crimes. This belief is quite obvious from the way said criminals are incarcerated. Very little attempts are made at reform them or to give them a useful role in society under more structured guidelines. The little attempts that come to mind (largely from US movies of southern 'chain gangs') suggest that the attempts were not to allow them to play a valuable role in society and to try to reform them, but rather simply to use their muscle power for manual labour in a menial, degrading manner. Thus, it seems that in the West we are caught in the midst of an hypocrisy. The criminals, we claim, should have human rights at certain times, but not at others. In fact, most of the time we simply lock them up and forget about them.

So which is it? Are they to be treated without rights - in which case there is no moral dilema with taking their organs without consent, or are they to be treated with only the very few human rights as can be entrusted to them? In this case, far greater efforts at reform and some form of social usefulness should be found. After all, you don't think that being incarcerated and separated from most of humanity for decades is a significant punishment by itself?

Void Surfer