Let’s say you – a highly authoritarian leader – are in charge of a gigantic country with a population of over one billion, which means there are a lot of citizens in need of well working organs, but who has one major problem: almost nobody is willing to donate organs voluntarily because of religion.
Executed prisoners in China are being stripped of their kidneys, livers and hearts in a practice so widespread that two out of three transplant operations rely on organs removed from condemned criminals.
The China Daily newspaper, in a first public acknowledgement of the reliance on prisoners for body parts, said that 65 per cent of donations came from death row. Huang Jiefu, the country’s Deputy Health Minister, said that condemned prisoners were “definitely not a proper source for organ transplants”.
Despite a 2007 regulation barring trading in human tissue, demand for new organs far exceeds legitimate supply.
Only about 130 people have signed up to donate organs since 2003, according to research by Professor Chen Zhonghua at the Institute of Organ Transplantation, Tongji Hospital.
Ah, the lovely nature of authoritarian regimes who have no morals whatsoever.
Hey, when will the United Nations start criticizing China instead of obsessing over Israel?
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