In Massachusetts, a new bill has been proposed to provide incarcerated individuals with the choice of donating their organs or bone marrow as an avenue for shortening their sentences. The authors of this legislation view it as a way to increase the pool of potential donors while granting inmates back control over their bodies. However, ethics experts express concerns that such action may be considered unlawful and exploitative in nature.
Late last month, Democrats Carlos González and Judith García proposed Bill HD.3822 which aims to establish a Bone Marrow and Organ Donation Program in the state. Those imprisoned under the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC) could see their sentences reduced anywhere from 60 days to 12 months in exchange for donating vital body parts such as livers or kidneys.
An ethics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, John Hooker, weighs in saying, “I don’t see an ethical justification for the proposed Massachusetts law”. He believes that once it’s been established that a prisoner is OK to be released from prison it should happen without the requirement for organ donation.
Brandon Paradise, a law professor at Rutgers Law School, says, “If the bill were to become law, a court may well strike it down.”
Supporters of this bill believe that it may revolutionize the way organ donations are facilitated in Massachusetts, as currently there is an immense shortage of donors and a lack of viable options for those awaiting organs. An estimated 4,000 people in the area remain without such pathways to receive life-saving transplants.
Professor Nicholas Evans, a renowned public health ethicist at UMass Lowell, voiced his alarm calling the situation “a disaster”. He pointed out that in America prisoners are prohibited from enrolling in clinical studies as those are viewed as an ‘undue inducement.” This appears it would fall into the same category.
Paradise asserted that the bill would only worsen existing racial injustice and inequality in criminal justice systems.
In the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, a jaw-dropping 28% and 29% of prisoners are Black or Latino respectively; however, they only account for 9% and 13% of the state’s total population.
Even the co-sponsor of the bill, state Rep. Russell Holmes, expressed hesitations due to ethical reservations surrounding its current language. Although he agreed with creating an avenue for organ donations, upon reading through the bill’s final draft and learning about its incentives scheme, he does not support the bill in its totality.
According to Evans from UMass, the proposed bill creates a double injustice for those who are over-incarcerated. By potentially using them as an easy source of bone marrow and organs, this plan is detrimental not only to prisoners and patients alike but also goes against the mission of prison and medical reform that authors should be advancing instead.
