Massachusetts Bill Offers to Cut Your Prison Time if You Donate Organs
Massachusetts is not the first state to try this law.
Massachusetts bill HD.3822 sets up a program allowing prisoners to cut down their sentence if they donate organs.
Section 170. (a) The Commissioner of the Department of Corrections shall establish a Bone Marrow and Organ Donation Program within the Department of Correction and a Bone Marrow and Organ Donation Committee. The Bone Marrow and Organ Donation Program shall allow eligible incarcerated individuals to gain not less than 60 and not more than 365 day reduction in the length of their committed sentence in Department of Corrections facilities, or House of Correction facilities if they are serving a Department of Correction sentence in a House of Corrections facility, on the condition that the incarcerated individual has donated bone marrow or organ(s).
State Rep. Carlos González told Boston.com a friend of his on dialysis who needs a transplant inspired him to write the bill:
“He’s a father of three children and is in stage 4 of kidney failure,” González said, adding, “I love my friend and I’m praying through this legislation that we can extend the chances of life for him and any other person in a similar life-or-death situation.”
González, a Springfield Democrat, noted that a number of comorbidities put people of color at risk for organ failure, pointing to higher risks of diabetes and heart disease among Hispanic and Black populations, and higher rates of chronic liver disease among Hispanic people. Broadening the pool of potential donors, he argues, is an effective way to increase the likelihood of those patients receiving critical care.
The National Organ Transplant Act doesn’t allow organ exchange for “valuable consideration.”
The bill disgusts a Massachusetts prison abolition organization:
“When I saw the bill, it just smacked as unethical and depraved. And the reason is because it is unethical to sell organs; it is unethical to incentivize the selling of organs for very, very good reasons,” said Michael Cox, executive director of the prison abolition organization Black and Pink Massachusetts, which supports LGBTQ+ and HIV+ people impacted by the criminal legal system.
He said the focus on incarcerated individuals was particularly shocking.
“They’re a marginalized group in society, highly stigmatized and extremely vulnerable,” Cox said in an interview. “And so to incentivize the selling of your body parts in exchange for the most precious commodity in the world — which is time on this earth, and your freedom — was just so appalling.”
Massachusetts is not the first state to have an organ donation bill.
I found a 1998 Missouri bill letting inmates to avoid the death penalty by donating organs.
A 2007 South Carolina bill took off 180 days of a prison sentence in exchange for organ donations. It caused an uproar over ethics and legality. The state ended up with a bill permitting prisoners to donate organs and tissue without any incentive.
A 2019 Missouri bill gave death row prisoners a chance to donate their organs.
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Comments
They’ll give you a full pardon for a donated heart.
As long as you have no regard for the real victim, right?
Massachussetts Organ Donation Bill would allow prisoners of any race to volunteer to give a kidney in return for a benefit.
California’s Reparation Bill would force all people of a certain race to give an arm and a leg but would get nothing in return.
Arguably, they would get time off their sentences if they moved out of CA now.
in exchange for the most precious commodity in the world
Which they already exchanged for their criminal activities. Tough noogies.
a number of comorbidities put people of color at risk for organ failure
Which means this is all about racism? F dat.
I don’t mind prisoners donating organs or being “organ donors” (that is, when they die). But IMO, absolutely nothing should get them time off their sentences. NOTHING.
But you can cancel their sentence completely for donating their livers, hearts, eyes, or both kidneys, since they will straight to the graveyard. In fact, it can be made mandatory in the event they are the right genetic match and nice payments are made to the State and the Governor’s reelection campaign. They only thing you wouldn’t want is their brains.
What – are they running out of baby body parts to sell?
The Marxist prison “abolitionists” oppose organ harvesting when it suits their political agenda. I wonder if they oppose harvesting infant stem cells from aborted babies.
Thirty-plus years ago Angela Davis and her Marxist pals coined and promoted the absurd “prison abolition” concept and now it’s mainstream.
The GOONS are turning our once proud country into
INDIA!
This seems really useless since you can’t even donate blood to the Red Cross if you’ve been in jail for more than 72 hours in a row recently.
Thanks – I was going to point out the prison exclusion from blood donations if nobody else did. And it’s not just donations to the Red Cross: blood donations are regulated by the FDA and apply to every blood center across the country.
I would guess that Rep. Gonzales is not and never has been a blood donor, since he doesn’t know this. Perhaps he could practice what he preaches???
Not much longer until viviparous is considered vulgar.
This is my shocked face. Deep-thinking Progressives have found yet one more cautionary tale to turn into an instruction manual. (Ironically, this webpage has already been updated to acknowledge the Massachusetts bill!)
“When I saw the bill, it just smacked as unethical and depraved. And the reason is because it is unethical to sell organs; it is unethical to incentivize the selling of organs for very, very good reasons.”
Horsepuckey. There’s nothing fair about a system where everyone involved earns five or more figures from the sale of your organs… except you. YOU don’t get a damn cent for YOUR organs. In fact, it often COSTS you money. What a scam.
Help! I’m living in Massachusetts and need a new state to live in! I promise NOT to bring ANY blue-state sensibilities with me!
Better leave quick before the MA Organ Exit Tax gets you – one kidney minimum, since a certain core political constituency has a prevalence for diabetes.
The Peoples Democratic Socialist Republic of Kalifornia (PDSRofK) will come get you up to 10 years after you leave the Left Coast Gulag
CUrrent medical ethics require that everybody make money off of organ transplants except the donor.
Not only do they not pay you for it, but you have no say in who does or doesn’t get it.
My wife and I have essentially identical political views. If my wife got into a fatal accident and I discovered that one of her kidneys helped save the life of Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, Joy Reid, Mike Bloomberg, etc., I would be livid, and I know she would have been as well.
And that’s why we stopped filling in the organ donor checkbox on our licenses.
My body, my choice. Policies have consequences.
Planned Prisonerhood
In China, they make sure they’ve executed you first before they start harvesting organs.
Between this and the current POTUS’ threatening tanks and bombs on anyone who protests the way his own political clients have protested, I am now sure our POTUS is Zhou Baideng (周拜邓–Joe, who worships Deng [of June 4, 1989 infamy]).
“In China, they make sure they’ve executed you first before they start harvesting organs.”
Really? Because it makes for much hardier organs if they do it in the other order, and making sure the procedure is humane is not a priority in China. It doesn’t cost any more to execute them after the operation… or as a side-effect of it.
I’d only agree to this program if convicts donate their brains in exchange for release.
See my entry below
Who wants drug and disease ravaged organs?
The Island
Will the transextites get extra time off if they donate just their tally whacker.
I think it’s safe to assume that since all are in prison for poor judgement, there wouldn’t be much demand for their brains….
Abby-Normal, anyone? (Young Frankenstein)