I remember, in my misspent youth, reading the short story The Jigsaw Man, by Larry Niven. It concerns a future in which organ transplantation is cheap and easy, thanks to the Organ Banks. Where do the Organ Banks get their organs? From criminals convicted of capital crimes. Unfortunately, thanks to supply and demand, there are not enough criminals to keep up, which causes the politicians to keep redefining "capital crimes" downwards.
The protagonist in The Jigsaw Man has been convicted of repeated speeding violations.
I haven't read the story in years and don't remember how it ends, but I do know that I never thought we'd be debating the ethics of involuntary organ donation in real life, any more than I thought we'd be discussing the best way to defend civilization from religious crackpots who live in the desert guarding a precious and scarce resource. But here we are.
The authoritarian maniacs running China today have long been suppressing Falun Gong. Allegations of torture and various human rights abuses are well documented.
But this is just sick.
On 9 March 2006, allegations were made of organ harvesting on living Falun Gong practitioners at the Sujiatun detention compound, an alleged labor camp and part of the China Traditional Medicine Thrombosis Treatment Center, [1] a joint-venture with Malaysian healthcare company Contry Heights Health Sanctuary and subject to oversight beyond local Chinese authority, located in Shenyang City, Liaoning province. According to at least two witnesses interviewed by The Epoch Times, internal organs of living Falun Gong practitioners have been harvested and sold to the black market, and the bodies have been cremated in the hospital's boiler room. The witnesses make allegations of nobody coming out of the camp alive, as well as six thousand practitioners being held captive at the hospital since 2001, two-thirds of whom have died to date. According to these sources, removed organs include hearts, kidneys, livers and cornea.
Now, NTD, the New York based Chinese language television network, reports Rav Elyashiv's opposition to organ harvesting, even when the patient's life is in danger.
For giggles, listen to the anchor mispronounce "Elyashiv" and "Sharei Tzedek". Highly amusing- probably the same reaction the anchor would have if she heard me pronounce "moo goo gai pan".
Anyway, my point: China is evil.
H/T The Yeshiva World.
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