Form the BTS website..\n\nAn accumulating body of evidence suggests that the organs of executed prisoners are being removed for transplantation without the prior consent of either the prisoner or their family.  \n\nThis process of organ procurement and the subsequent transplants are known to involve payment of money and may implicate transplant centres, patients, and the authorities and judiciary responsible for the prisoners.The precise numbers of transplants performed using organs derived from executed prisoners is unknown but the figure is thought to be in the thousands.\n\nAnd it gets worse...\n\nApparently prisoners are being 'chosen' by demand...\n\nThis would be a new 'low' for mankind, would authorities turn a blind eye to such practices?
201442
Its possible, China's record on human rights is appalling.  The trade in human organs has been happening for years I'm afraid to say.  Often its impoverished locals who are persuaded to sell their organs to tourists who come to the country for transplant.  It happens in India so it may well be happening in China too.
41433
I often thought the same thing like why not allow death row inmates to offer their services to the public by being used in medical experiments. The degree of severoity of the medical condition would have a direct bearing on the type of crime commited.
111902
I feel if there were witnesses, videotapes, irrefutable evidence, a confession from a megalomaniac sociopath, a serial killer, that kind of thing, or cold blooded i beat my wife to death because she didn't cook breakfast within a certain amount of time and the eggs were cold.  they are not rehab people. no amount of rehab will make charles manson "sane" (he is sane...just doesn't care, sociopath, tha's the word).  kill them like you would a rabid dog. they don't fit the bill of humanity, humane or even worth the tax dollars to make them suffer worse and live life in prison. although i also think life in prison is probably not the hell it is for other people, for people like this. \nI think that DNA evidence has been screwed up a few times, which is why I'm saying to make sure you know what you've got on your hands and in a lot of cases, there is no question.  I don't believe in the death penalty for children, even if they are evil in the making,  i don't believe in trying them as adults, it's abhorrent. a lawmakers way to hell, everyone knows the adolescent mind is crazy with hormones, changes and egocentric behaviour that's normal--you can't hold them to the same standard and if they can't be rehabilitated, find out through a good juvenile (i wish) system, not an arena made for adults whose minds, however small, are fully grown. never put a child in an adult prison with the rest of the prisoners. let them sit in a cell and listen. overnight or two, don't tell them when they're getting out.  you'll have them scared straighter than a southern belles deportment. the death penalty is for the rabid.  life in prison is worse, and for those offenders who did horrible things as apart of a life decidedly crime filled on purpose let them rot. I think its funny that people think life in prison is more humane anyway.  I have my doubts.
658982
Yes, we've risen to new heights of incompetence.  If it is clear that each prisoner is a terrorist, it should be quick work to charge them, try them, and throw them into real jails (military or otherwise).  What is so unreasonable or difficult about that?\n\nBut it's taken more than 4 years to charge a tiny handful, and finally send a few never-charged people home.  While we don't seem to be able to get our stuff sufficiently together even to CHARGE the vast majority after all this time.\n\nIt's obviously incoherent.  I think the gov't is embarrassed to admit it's clueless about most of these prisoners (who mostly seem to be there based on snap decisions by soldiers in the field, as far as we can tell).  What do you say to people you've imprisoned for 4 years with no visitation by their families when you finally decide you have no basis to hold them and need to send them home?  Better to drag it out.  Maybe some evidence will turn up, or they will commit suicide or something.
673942
The one poster noted rejection issues, and there are numerous ones. Naturally, animal organ transplantation can never replace human organ transplantation (though stem cell research does offer some hope to replace the latter in 50-100 years).\n\nIt is moral to sacrifice an animal life to save a human life from the perspective that a human life is more valuable than that of an animal
396617
Ok, I've had to write a similar paper about a zillion times in college, so here's some advice: Write on the positive and negative outcomes it could have such as organ transplant and the possiblity of people trying to sell their own organs for $$$, and how there could be a large black market of organs for sale. This will make a rise in the homocide rate (people killing other people to steal their organs) and because there has not been a lot done w/ stem cell organs, they do not know the longivity of them. Most religious people are aganist it because they think that it will increase abortion. I don't know....Good luck!
433905
Can you imagine it? Organs could be grown for people in need that are an identical genetic match basically eliminating the chance the body would reject it. Millions of people are waiting for suitable donors and this could save a lot of lives. I don't see the problem.
482991
That's a lot of questions. Let's see...\n1) I will not donate my organs. There's no point. For medical reasons, they would be unusable except for training purposes, and I feel that is undignified.\n\n2) Ordinary means of resusitation can include paddles. But machines that breathe for you or take over organ function for more than a few minutes would be extraordinary.\n\n3) Euthanasia should be illegal because it's too easy to shift the decision from the person to the doctor, or worse, the inheritor. This has already happened in Holland.\n\n4) I could only offer encouragement, and see to it that appropriate pain relievers are made available.\n\n5) Passive is the only way. However, witholding of feeding is NOT acceptable.\n\n6) No. That is not a decision that can be morally made by any man.\n\n7) Life ends when brain function stops. At that point, the soul is no longer present, and there is no point in keeping the rest of the  body functioning.\n\nOh, I'm 52, and have a personal relationship with my Creator.
91464
People might have different views about cloning. But  if  organs are cloned for people who cant find any donors ,then its right and should be encouraged.But this technology should be handled with extra care, so that it may not get misused
433756
Wow, this opens up a can of worms.  Be prepared to duck; you may get some very sharpish answers!\n\nFor what it's worth (FWIW), I've heard that some very conservative Christians are not very happy with the idea of organ donation because they want to be resurrected with all their parts.  \n\n(Personally, things are going to decay anyway, I figure, and I cannot see how an omnipotent Deity is going to be slowed up significantly if someone's minus a few tissues....But I'll leave it for such believers to believe as they choose, and if I've misunderstood their doctrine, hope they'll accept it as an honest goof and not malicious.)   \n\nI understand that some of the more conservative Jewish groups feel that autopsies and such are disrespectful to the dead, and THINK that some Muslim groups have similar beliefs.  However, do NOT know whether the potential "good" and charity that can come from saving life overrides such "disrespect". \n\nI've found, again FWIW, that people in the more "liberal"  denominations (examples:  Quaker/Friends, United Church of Christ), Unitarians, and Pagans/Wiccans tend to be very vigorously IN FAVOR of donating organs and tissues, on the basis of "hey, let's not waste them, and we can do some wonderful good for a number of people".  \n\nHowever, individual people may vary.  You may need to check for "policy papers" on organ donation for each separate spiritual denomination/belief, if you want better data....but this is going to be almost impossible for the atheists/agnostics, and also for the Pagans/Wiccans (because we're independent-minded and ornery as cats, and HAVE no centralized religious governing body to set policy).\n\nI signed the "organ donor" designation on my license right when turning legal age....and before that, told my parents to donate anything and everything as my last wish.  Was raised Lutheran (Missouri Synod---one of the more conservative L.), but now am a very happy Goddess-worshipping Pagan.
282537
Your friend is correct. It IS illegal to sell your blood or any body organs. You can only donate through Red Cross Blood Bank or other such designated places. Someone herehas to know more about it than me though. Good Luck.
616481
I'd address three topics:\n\n1.Is it justified (eg. eye for an eye, revenge Vs rehabilitation, rights of the victim and their family, risk of miscarriage etc)\n2.Is it effective (eg. is it a deterent, does it make better societies, is it cheaper than permanent incarceration etc)\n3.Is it legal (eg. is it a cruel and unusual punishment, the position of international law, etc)\n\nYou've probably been asked the US/UK part because we are fairly similar societies with a largely common ancestry\nand tradition, but the UK abolished the death penalty whilst much of the US still uses it.  You can go two ways on this - \n1. the US is a much younger society still in a vigourous development phase facing the challenges of it's huge size and diversity so frontier justice is still appropriate (similar claims for China by the way, the other big executor).  when the UK was trying to hold a huge empire together it executed loads of people too.\n2. the existence in the US of a more fundemental christianity gives people a different perspective on life (and death) from the broadly humanist (post christian) views in Europe (including the UK) where morality is more personal and less something learned from religion.  Religious Europe was a very bloody place indeed for hundreds of years.\n\nHope this helps, BTW my opinion is that it is as morally justifiable as war.  I really don't want to have to do it, but sometimes I might have to protect my family and society.  Right now I think both our societies could live without capital punishment, and therefore should - but that could change.
258440
whoo, thats a doozee of a question. im sure that if a set of conjoined twins could be surgically separated, theyd do it, and send the killer to jail. if not, idk.
354286
that is one way off lookin at it but the arguement against it could be.\n1. if the person was found innocent later on...they could be freed\n2. suffering for a life time much better than a quick death\n\ni have a solution...\n\nturn prisons into factories... like get them to make pillows....or bag up paper clips or something... that way they can "give back to society" and still suffer!... cos that wat it all about!
337607
One of the major problems with most transplant procedures is acceptibility. The patient's body recognizes the new organ as an intruder or threat, and attacks it.\nA cloned version of yourself would theoretically be a source of completely acceptable organs, since they are, in essence, your organs, genetically identical. Of course, you'd be killing another sentient being to harvest these organs, so there's the morality issue.\n\nHuman ingenuity has always been directed towards two opposite goals, saving lives, and destroying them. The other likely reason for cloning humans is for war. Identical soldiers, genetically modified to increase their physical prowess, dexterity with their weapon, and willingness to follow orders. Why send thousands of skilled laborers, with families and children, to their deaths when you can have a clone army grown specifically to be cannon fodder?\n\nI'm sure you could think of a few more reasons, if you really thought about it.
291360
It does seem like sterilizing a needle for a person that is being killed by the government don't it. I think a person ought to be able to choose their own path to hell. So why are their such laws.
416473
I am so torn on the death penalty issue... I don't have a stance yet.\n\nFrom a strictly economical side, I'm against the death penalty, because I've heard in multiple places that it costs 2-3 times more than life in prison w/o parole.\n\nFrom a moral standpoint, it's hard to say.  Killing someone removes them once and for all as a threat.  Granted, while in jail they are only a threat to other inmates and the prison guards, but still, you cannot make a blanket judgment on whether those people (in the case of the other prisoners) deserve the threat, or (in the case of the guards) willingly accept the threat by being in that job.  Also, there's always the chance of escape.  You don't have that chance with death.\n\nIn addition, there's the obvious fact that if you accept the death penalty, almost regardless of standards for conviction, you're going to eventually get an innocent person in there.  Making the standards for conviction extremely high just leads to multiple expensive appeals, which brings us back to the economic reason to be against it.  It also makes the death penalty so rare that any appeal to it being a deterrent is just silly at that point, because even if you are convicted you'd have to be one of the unlucky ones to get the chair.\n\nIn fact, I have not seen any evidence that it actually serves as a deterrent, regardless of the extensiveness of its use.\n\nI do believe that the highest value must be placed on human life, but when you have one human life that continues to threaten others, isn't it respecting that value to end their life?\n\nI don't know.  I'm an atheist struggling to have a position on this.