Organs in exchange for freedom? Bill raises ethical concerns

BOSTON >> A proposal to let Massachusetts prisoners donate organs and bone marrow to shave time off their sentence is raising profound ethical and legal questions about putting undue pressure on inmates desperate for freedom.

The bill — which faces a steep climb in the Massachusetts Statehouse — may run afoul of federal law, which bars the sale of human organs or acquiring one for “valuable consideration.”

It also raises questions about whether and how prisons would be able to appropriately care for the health of inmates who go under the knife to give up organs. Critics are calling the idea coercive and dehumanizing even as one of the bill's sponsors is framing the measure as a response to the over-incarceration of Hispanic and Black people and the need for matching donors in those communities.

“The bill reads like something from a dystopian novel,” said Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a Washington, D.C.-based criminal justice reform advocacy group. “Promoting organ donation is good. Reducing excessive prison terms is also good. Tying the two together is perverse.”

The bill would create a Bone Marrow and Organ Donation Program within the state Department of Correction to allow incarcerated individuals to receive a reduction in their sentence of between 60 days and a year on the condition that they have donated bone marrow or organs.

Democratic state Rep. Judith Garcia, one of the sponsors of the bill, said it was filed in response to what she called the health inequities stemming from “the vicious cycle of unjust incarceration and over-policing of Black and Brown communities.”

Black and Hispanic communities are at higher risk for health conditions that might require organ donation, and discriminatory incarceration rates eliminate many likely donor matches from the pool leading to longer waitlists for African Americans compared to white individuals, she added.