Organ Harvesting and Trafficking

Organ harvesting is a surgical procedure that removes organs or tissues for reuse, typically for organ transplantation. Organ procurement is heavily regulated in most countries to prevent unethical allocation of organs. However, it is a big business in China.

Human rights groups have known about forced organ harvesting in China for over a decade. Minorities and prisoners are especially vulnerable. They are killed and theirs organ removed. The victims are people who follow Falun Gong, Uyghur Muslims detained in the Xinjiang region, Tibetan Buddhists, and Christians.

The organ recipients are wealthy Chinese or transplant tourists who travel to China and pay a substantial sum to receive the transplant. The waiting times are short and at times vital organs are booked in advance.

Related reading: What You Should Know About Organ Harvesting in China; Harvesting Organs From the Poor; Peter Singer on Harvesting Organs From the Living Dead

Belgium's Big Business: Organ Harvesting

Belgium is plagued by a culture of death and has been for many decades. By a vote of 50 to 17, the Belgian Senate approved euthanasia for children in December 2013. In a case that attracted world attention, Belgian doctors killed 45-year-old deaf identical twins who were going blind in 2013. Since before 2011, Belgium doctors have been harvesting the organs of euthanised patients. It is a big business there.

In the latest news from Belgium, a 24-year-old woman who is suffering from depression but is otherwise healthy will be euthanised.

She qualifies for "the right to die" under the Belgian law, even though she does not have a terminal or life-threatening illness.

The 24-year-old woman, known simply as Laura, has been given the go-ahead by health professionals in Belgium to receive a lethal injection after spending both her childhood and adult life suffering from "suicidal thoughts", she told local Belgian media.

Laura has been a patient of a psychiatric institution since the age of 21 and says she has previously tried to kill herself on several occasions. She told journalists: "Death feels to me not as a choice. If I had a choice, I would choose a bearable life, but I have done everything and that was unsuccessful." The date of Laura's death is yet to be decided.

Read more here.

Related reading: Belgium Approves Euthanasia for Terminal Children; Insane Conversations in Belgium; Organ Harvesting in Belgium

Harvesting Organs from the Poor

Organ trafficking and illicit transplant surgeries have infiltrated global medical practice. But despite the evidence of widespread criminal networks and several limited prosecutions in countries including India, Kosovo, Turkey, Israel, South Africa and the US, it is still not treated with the seriousness it demands.

Since the first report into the matter in 1990, there has been an alarming number of post-operative deaths of “transplant tour” recipients from botched surgeries, mismatched organs and high rates of fatal infections, including HIV and Hepatitis C contracted from sellers' organs. Living kidney sellers suffer from post-operative infections, weakness, depression, and some die from suicide, wasting, and kidney failure. Organs Watch documented five deaths among 38 kidney sellers recruited from small villages in Moldova.

Distressing stories lurk in the murky background of today’s business of commercialised organ transplantation, conducted in a competitive global field that involves some 50 nations. The World Health Organisation estimates 10,000 black market operations happen each year.

Read it all here.


Related reading:  Organ Harvesting in Belgium; China Crackdown on Organ Trafficking; Costa Rican Organ Trafficking

China Crackdown on Organ Trafficking

Chinese police have arrested 137 people, including 18 doctors, in the latest crackdown on human organ trafficking. The Ministry of Public Security also said that 127 organ suppliers were rescued in raids in late July.

The suspects illegally recruited suppliers over the internet, facilitated the deals and made huge profits from the transactions, which had endangered the health of the suppliers and placed a heavy financial burden on the recipients. "The suspects usually used fake identities to recruit healthy candidates from the internet and put them under secret confinement separated from the outside world," a Ministry of Security statement said.


About 1.5 million Chinese are said to need organ transplants, but only around 10,000 are performed annually due to a lack of donors. The gap has generated an organ trafficking industry, which seems to flourish even though the sale of organs was declared illegal last year. ~ London Telegraph, Aug 5

Bangladesh: Poor Victims of Organ Traffickers

Scar on a Bangladeshi woman is the result of selling a kidney
(Credit: 2005 photo by Monir Moniruzzaman)

A Michigan State University anthropologist from Bangladesh has published the first in-depth study describing the often horrific experiences of poor people who were victims of organ trafficking. Monir Moniruzzaman interviewed 33 kidney sellers in Bangladesh and found they typically didn't get the money they were promised and were plagued with serious health problems that prevented them from working, shame and depression.

The study, which appears in Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Moniruzzaman said the people selling their organs are exploited by unethical brokers and recipients who are often Bangladeshi-born foreign nationals living in places such as the United States, Europe and the Middle East. Because organ-selling is illegal, the brokers forge documents indicating the recipient and seller are related and claim the act is a family donation.
Doctors, hospital officials and drug companies turn a blind eye to the illicit act because they profit along with the broker and, of course, the recipient.

Moniruzzaman recently delivered his research findings and recommendations on human organ trafficking to both the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Organ brokers typically snag the unwitting sellers through deceptive advertisements. One ad, in a Bangladeshi newspaper, falsely promised to reward a kidney seller with a visa to the United States. Moniruzzaman collected more than 1,200 similar newspaper ads for the study.

The organ trade is thriving in Bangladesh, a country where 78 percent of residents live on less than US$2 a day. The average quoted price of a kidney is 100,000 taka ($1,400) -- a figure that has gradually dropped due to an abundant supply from the poor majority.

One Bangladeshi woman advertised to sell a cornea so she could feed her family, saying she needed only one eye to see. That transplant didn't happen, but Moniruzzaman said there have been cases of corneas being sold.

Moniruzzaman said it's important to note that most sellers do not make "autonomous choices" to sell their organs, but instead are manipulated and coerced. To combat organ trafficking, he recommends, more vigilance on the part of governments, more vigilance by doctors in checking the relationship between recipient and donor, and the establishment of systems for enabling cadaveric donation in developing countries.


Related reading:  Organ Trafficking; Organs Taken from Living Refugees; Boycotting Organs from Chinese Prisoners;

Organs Taken From Living Refugees

Bedouin smugglers who engage in people trafficking are allegedly stealing organs from indigent refugees seeking to enter Israel without enough cash, according to a startling report from CNN.


The New Generation Foundation for Human Rights and the EveryOne group claim that bodies of African refugees have been found in the Sinai desert with organs missing. A Bedouin source identified criminals in the Sawarka tribe, one of the largest in Sinai, as the offenders. A Sawarka leader said he was aware of people trafficking, torture and bonded labour. However, he also said that only rogue sections of the tribe were involved. CNN reports that no one in the tribe was willing to speak out about organ theft.

But Hamdy Al-Azazy, of New Generation Foundation, says traffickers steal the organs from refugees while they are still alive. "The organs are not useful if they're dead. They drug them first and remove their organs, then leave them to die and dump them in a deep dry well along with hundreds of bodies." He believes corrupt Egyptian doctors in mobile hospital units remove organs, particularly livers, kidneys and corneas.

"Mobile clinics using advanced technology come from a private hospital in Cairo to an area in the deserts of Mid-Sinai and conduct physicals on the Africans before they choose those suitable, then they conduct the operation," Al-Azazy said. ~ CNN, Nov 3
 

Boycotting Chinese Organs from Prisoners

In response to the "barbarous practice of obtaining organs from executed prisoners" in China, the prominent US bioethicist Arthur Caplan, together with other experts, proposed an international boycott of organ transplants in China in a recent issue of The Lancet. Chinese doctors and scientists would be excluded from conferences, journals, and collaborative research. BioEdge asked Professor Caplan to elaborate on the situation in China.

BioEdge: How dependent are Chinese transplant surgeons on the organs of executed prisoners?

Arthur Caplan: They are heavily dependent. While there are living donors of kidneys and once in a while a lobe of liver the Chinese have no cadaver organ procurement system. So the vast majority of transplanted organs according to their own numbers of transplants carried out must come from prisoners. For hearts and livers those certainly are executed prisoners.

Are Chinese doctors and hospitals actively marketing organ transplant services?

Yes, they are. They promote transplant tourism on the internet. And they are making plans to expand their ability to do transplants and to attract more non-Chinese cash customers by creating what they call "medical cities".

How have doctors, journals, and scientists reacted to your proposal? Has there been any resistance?

It is too soon to tell. So far the reaction has been a bit disappointing--no ringing endorsements from any journals or professional societies.

How have the Chinese reacted?

No reaction at all.

The Chinese government has vowed to end the practice of using organs from executed prisoners. Why haven't they stopped? Do you think that they will stop?

I think many Chinese health care professionals do want the practice to end. But they are sceptical about whether they can get the public to support cadaver organ donation. And I believe the military, which appears to play a key role in running prisons and some of the transplant hospitals, is less concerned about execution as a key source of transplantable organs.

As in other Asian countries, there is great resistance to organ donation in China. If they cannot rely upon executed prisoners, what would you advise them to do?

They must create a cadaver organ donor system. Period. There is always resistance when these programs are launched--there was in the USA decades ago and more recently in Denmark and Israel. A strong campaign with clear explanations of rights and safeguards is the key to public acceptance.

What if a prisoner did give his consent? A prisoner on Oregon's death row recently published an op-ed in the New York Times volunteering his organs.

"Prisoners" in China come in all forms--political, religious, criminal. I doubt we can take 'consent' at face value. Nor do I think we can trust consent to donation from persons being executed in the USA. The hope of commutation of a death sentence is a hugely coercive factor even if it does not come to pass. See my just published article in the American Journal of Bioethics for more on using prisoners as sources of organs.

Arthur L. Caplan is the Director of the Center for Bioethics and the Sydney D Caplan Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author or editor of twenty-nine books and over 500 papers in refereed journals.

Organ Trafficking

Investigative journalist Scott Carney has just published The Red Market, a book about the international trade in human body parts --trade in human body parts -- kidneys, skeletons, wombs, bones, even human hair. He makes a few interesting comments in a promotional interview with Publishers Weekly:


Publishers Weekly: Did any of your subjects--bone traders, blood traffickers, and organ brokers--give you any trouble for exposing their rackets?

Carney: The interesting thing about red markets is that everyone along the supply chain sees himself or herself in a positive light; they always talk about how they save lives, bring children into happy homes, or provide necessary materials for scientific study. My job was to see through the rhetoric and take a long hard look at what was really going on.

Publishers Weekly: You propose exposing the supply chain. How do you see this being implemented?

Carney: The worst offenses I've witnessed have only come about because the transactions happen behind closed doors. Every time someone sells, transplants, or moves a piece of human tissue from one body to another, there should be a record. Right now only a handful of people are able to look at official records, and most of them don't have any vested interest in rooting out problems in the system. If we put the power back into the hands of the public, then their outrage at kidnappings, grave robbing, blood farming, and organ trafficking should be enough to expose the worst perpetrators.
 
From here.
 
 
 

Organ Harvesting in Belgium

A group of Belgian doctors are harvesting “high quality” organs from patients who have been euthanased. This is not a secret project, but one which they described openly at a conference organised by the Belgian Royal Medical Academy in December.

In a PowerPoint presentation, Dirk Ysebaert, Dirk Van Raemdonck, Michel Meurisse, of the University Hospitals Of Antwerp, Leuven And Liège, showed that about 20% of the 705 people who died through euthanasia (officially) in 2008 were suffering from neuromuscular disorders whose organs are relatively high quality for transplanting to other patients. This represents a useful pool of organs which could help to remedy a shortage of organs in Belgium (as everywhere else).

It is not clear from the presentation how many patients participated in their scheme. However, in a 2008 report, Belgian doctors explained that three patients had been euthanased between 2005 and 2007 and had agreed to donate their organs.

Euthanasia for organ transplant is a bit different from normal euthanasia, the doctors say, because they prefer that patients die in hospital rather than at home.

They have developed a protocol for the procedure. There has to be a strict separation between the euthanasia request, the euthanasia procedure, and the organ procurement. The donor and his (or her) relatives have to consent. The euthanasia is performed by a neurologist or psychiatrist and two house physicians. Organ retrieval begins after clinical diagnosis of death by the three physicians. And, of course, staff participation is voluntary.

This seems like the ultimate in utilitarian compassion: make paralysed people feel useful by killing them for their organs. It’s something to look forward to if euthanasia ever get legalised. ~ thanks to Carinne Brochier, of l'Institut Européen de Bioéthique, in Brussels.

From here.

Haley Barbour's Decision on the Scott Sisters

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's decision to commute the prison sentences of two sisters drew wide attention in part because their cause has been embraced by civil rights activists. But an unusual aspect of the arrangement is also drawing scrutiny: Barbour said his action was "conditioned on" one sister donating a kidney to the other.

The case involves sisters serving double life sentences for armed robbery convictions. Barbour agreed this week to suspend their sentences in light of the poor health of 38-year-old Jamie Scott, who requires regular dialysis. The governor said in a statement that 36-year-old Gladys Scott's release is conditioned on her giving a kidney to her inmate sibling.

"The Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society," Barbour said in the statement. "Their incarceration is no longer necessary for public safety or rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott's medical condition creates a substantial cost to the State of Mississippi. . . . Gladys Scott's release is conditioned on her donating one of her kidneys to her sister, a procedure which should be scheduled with urgency."

Some medical ethicists are concerned about the role of the organ donation in the Scotts' release. Barbour's spokesman Dan Turner said the contingency was Gladys Scott's idea.

"It was something that she offered," Turner said. "It was not something that the governor's office or Department of Corrections or the parole board said, 'If you do this, we would do this.' It was not held as a quid pro quo. She offered."

Gladys Scott will not be forced to return to prison if for some reason she cannot donate the organ, the governor's office said. Medical ethicists say they're still concerned, even if the donation is voluntary.

"If the sister belongs in prison, then she should be allowed to donate and return to prison, and if she doesn't belong in prison, then she should have her sentence commuted whether or not she is a donor," said physician Michael Shapiro, chief of organ transplantation at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey and chair of the United Network for Organ Sharing's ethics committee.

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, who met with Barbour about the sisters' case and has pushed for their release, said the governor's office has made it clear Gladys Scott will not go back to prison if her kidney is not a match. Both sisters will follow traditional parole release procedures.

"This is a shining example of how governors should use their commutation powers," Jealous said. "At the end of the day, the most important thing is that they are free and reunited with their families. This is a day when the right thing is being done."

Read it all here.

Serb Prisoners Murdered for their Organs?

Was Kosovo's recently re-elected Prime Minister involved in murdering Serb prisoners for their organs during the 1999 civil war? An official report from a committee of the Council of Europe said this week that there is enough evidence to warrant further investigation. This was angrily repudiated by Hashim Thaci, the prime minister, as defamatory and as Serb propaganda. These rumours had been thoroughly discredited many times, he told a press conference in Pristina.

The report, by Swiss politician Dick Marty, says that there are "numerous indications" that organs were removed from some prisoners of the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1999. Mr Thaci, a former KLA commander, was accused of being "the boss" of a mafia-like criminal organisation involved in heroin dealing and organ trafficking.

According to the Guardian, which received an advance copy, the report says: "The testimonies on which we based our findings spoke credibly and consistently of a methodology by which all of the captives were killed, usually by a gunshot to the head, before being operated on to remove one or more of their organs."

The organ trafficking seems to have continued after the war. Seven men were charged this week in Pristina this week. Poor people from Moldova, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkey were promised up to €14,500 for their organs. The recipients, who came from Canada, Germany, Poland and Israel, paid between €80,000 and €100,000 for them. But the donors were never paid, European Union prosecutor Jonathan Ratel told Pristina District Court. Five of the seven were doctors.

The gruesome story is extremely murky, but this week's developments support claims made by Carla Del Ponte, a former United Nations war crimes prosecutor, in a 2008 book. ~ Guardian, Dec 14

Pakistan's New Organ Donation Law

Pakistan has passed a law banning organ donation except to close relatives. In the predominantly Muslim country, there are religious scruples about the morality of receiving organs from deceased donors. The law is meant to put a stop to a thriving black market in organs for transplant tourists. There are many stories of impoverished peasants parting with their kidneys for a few hundred dollars -- and then suffering ill-health for years afterwards. ~ Al Jazeera Video, May 23

Amit Kumar Jailed for Stealing Kidneys

Impoverished Indian labourer Mohammad Salim had one of his kidneys stolen headed up by a doctor whom the local media are calling the "kidney kingpin", Amit Kumar. An estimated 500 other poor labourers received much the same treatment. Indian authorities believe that Dr Kumar, who is now in jail awaiting trial, sold most of the kidneys to wealthy foreigners. Salim's kidney appears to have been given to a Greek woman.

Two years ago Salim was lured to Delhi from his hometown of Meerut by the promise of a job. Instead, he was taken in a "big black car" to Kumar's clinic. He was forced to give a blood sample and then sedated. When he woke up 15 hours later he had acute pain in his side and was missing a kidney.

He was threatened with death if he revealed what had happened to him. He told the media: "As I entered the building there were four men standing there with guns. They told me not to speak about anything that happened there or they would shoot me." After the surgery, another doctor told him, "We found you in your home town so we can also send a bullet there to kill you too."

Now Salim is unable to work for more than a few hours at a time. His children have all dropped out of school, and some days he doesn't make enough money to feed them. The Australian media has picked up the kidney sale scandal because Dr Kumar is believed to have invested heavily in the Australian property market. ~ The Age, Mar 13, Far Eastern Economic Review, Jan 2009

NEWS BRIEFS: March 3-5, 2010

ROME, March 5 LifeSiteNews.com - Human Life International, the largest international pro-life organization in the world, has condemned the signing of Spain's new abortion law by king Juan Carlos I, and says that the monarch has excommunicated himself from the Catholic Church.

CAIRO, March 5 AfrolNews- Egyptian Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni confirmed that the UK has returned 217 ancient Egyptian artefacts, dating from the early Stone Age to the pharonic era. The collection will be used for a new antiquities museum in Qena. The new museum is to focus on the "Naqada period", one of the earliest civilisations known on earth, located near the current-day Naqada village in southern Egypt.

PADANG BESAR, March 2 Bernama - The Secretary General of Malaysia revealed the existence of organ trafficking involving Malaysian victims abroad. Datuk Abdul Rahim Mohd Radzi said most of the victims were women and children who were kidnapped and brought to a foreign country before their organs were removed and sold.

CAIRO, March 3 CIHRS/IFEX - The Bibliotheca Alexandrina has granted a human rights award to the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) "in appreciation of its distinguished, ongoing efforts in the field of human rights and its defense of freedom of expression," the library said. The award includes a shield named for the late Dr. Adel Abu Zahra, a prominent civil society pioneer, and a monetary prize. Dr. Ismail Serag Eldin, the director of the library, will present the award later today to the Institute's program coordinator, Samy Saad.

KUNDA, India, March 5 - (AP) — A stampede among thousands of poor villagers scrambling for free food and clothes at a commemorative event killed 63 people Thursday at a Hindu temple and injured dozens of others. Nearly all the victims were women and children. The stampede was so intense it knocked down a gate at the compound surrounding the temple in the small town of Kunda, on the northern plains of Uttar Pradesh state.

Spain Leads in Organ Donation

For the 18th year in a row, Spain leads the world in the number of deceased organ donors per million people -- 34.3. This is a commonly used benchmark of the effectiveness of a donor system and other countries lag far behind. The average for the European Union is 18.1 and in the US it is 26.3. In the UK, the figure is 14.7 and in Australia 12.1 donors per million. The Spanish are particularly proud of their record, which was achieved despite a steady decrease in the number of traffic deaths, a major source of organs.


What is the secret of the Spanish system? Dedication and teamwork.In 1989 the government set up a national network of transplant coordinators. They work in all hospitals and closely monitor emergency wards to be aware of potential donors. When they learn of a death, they tactfully try to persuade relatives to allow the person's organs to be harvested. Only about 15% of families refuse consent nowadays, a huge drop from 40% before the system was set up. At a few hospitals the refusal rate is nearly zero. ~ AFP, Jan 12; Organización Nacional de Trasplantes

Pakistani Hospitals Cited in Illegal Organ Trade

ISLAMABAD, June 23: The Supreme Court is concerned that sale of human organs for transplantation is continuing despite the promulgation of a law prohibiting it.

“It seems the provisions of the ordinance are not adhered to strictly and despite prohibition of the sale of human organs in Pakistan, their trade is going on allegedly in two hospitals, the names of which find have been mentioned in a letter sent by the Transplantation Society of Pakistan,” a three-judge bench observed on Tuesday.

The court had taken suo motu notice of the issue after the Kidney Centre in Rawalpindi and Aadil Hospital in Lahore were reported to be involved in the illegal trade.

An appeal had been filed on the basis of a report published by Dawn on June 14.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Chaudhry Ijaz Ahmed and Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja observed that the objective of promulgating the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Ordinance, 2007, was to provide for the regulation of removal, storage and transplantation of human organs and tissues for therapeutic purposes.

The law had been developed by the Shaukat Aziz government on the instructions of the apex court which had asked the administration to devise measures against illegal donors, sellers and purchasers of human organs.

Punjab’s Additional Advocate General Qazi Mohammad Amin appeared on court notice, while Advocate Sardar M. Ishaq and Col (retd) Dr Mukhtar Ahmed appeared on behalf of the Kidney Centre, Rawalpindi, and Chief Operating Officer Abdul Waheed Sheikh for the Aadil Hospital, Lahore.

In response to a notice issued on June 20, Mr Sheikh assured the court his hospital’s management had decided not to carry out any transplant in future. An undertaking by the hospital said the decision had been communicated to the Human Organ Transplant Authority.

From here.

Appel: A Dangerous Bioethicist

Jacob Appel, an Ivy League-educated lawyer and medical historian, recently wrote that “the moment is ripe—more than ripe—for an Abortion Pride Movement.” He believes such a movement is necessary because women should “feel comfortable expressing public pride in their brave and wise choices.” Along with glorifying abortion, Appel has in the past contemplated a market for the fetal organs of abortion victims. With Appel having such radical beliefs, it is truly laughable that he is a bioethicist.

He has said that those "who have chosen to terminate their pregnancies are rarely encouraged to take pride in their decisions. That is unfortunate."

This kind of irrational thought and behavior is nothing new to the pro-choice movement. Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in this country, stated that abortion wasn’t shameful and even had the audacity to make shirts proudly announcing “I had an abortion.” Planned Parenthood also distributed “Choice on Earth” Christmas cards mocking the Slaughter of the Innocents told in the Gospel of Matthew. Locally, the NARAL Pro-Choice group of Maryland ironically wants to celebrate this year’s Mother’s Day with a brunch commemorating reproductive freedom.

For unplanned pregnancies, Appel seems to think that abortion is a better choice than allowing the child to be born and grow up. He believes this because, as he says, “there is enough suffering in this world.” This kind of thinking probably led to the recent dumping of a newborn baby’s body in a College Park lake. Adoption can easily alleviate the so-called “suffering” as there are plenty of willing parents that would love to adopt children.

Read it all here.

Obama's Disturbing Attitude Toward Life

Yesterday President Barack Obama issued an executive order that authorizes expanded federal funding for research using stem cells produced by destroying human embryos. The announcement was classic Obama: advancing radical policies while seeming calm and moderate, and preaching the gospel of civility while accusing those who disagree with the policies of being "divisive" and even "politicizing science."

Mr. Obama's executive order overturned an attempt by President George W. Bush in 2001 to do justice to both the promise of stem-cell science and the demands of ethics. The Bush policy was to allow the government to fund research on existing embryonic stem-cell lines, where the embryos in question had already been destroyed. But it would not fund, or in any way incentivize, the ongoing destruction of human embryos.

For years, this policy was attacked by advocates of embryo-destructive research. Mr. Bush and the "religious right" were depicted as antiscience villains and embryonic stem-cell scientists and their allies were seen as the beleaguered saviors of the sick. In reality, Mr. Bush's policy was one of moderation. It did not ban new embryo-destructive research (the president had no power to do that), and it did not fund new embryo-destructive research.
"Moderate" Mr. Obama's policy is not. It will promote a whole new industry of embryo creation and destruction, including the creation of human embryos by cloning for research in which they are destroyed. It forces American taxpayers, including those who see the deliberate taking of human life in the embryonic stage as profoundly unjust, to be complicit in this practice.

Mr. Obama made a big point in his speech of claiming to bring integrity back to science policy, and his desire to remove the previous administration's ideological agenda from scientific decision-making. This claim of taking science out of politics is false and misguided on two counts.

First, the Obama policy is itself blatantly political. It is red meat to his Bush-hating base, yet pays no more than lip service to recent scientific breakthroughs that make possible the production of cells that are biologically equivalent to embryonic stem cells without the need to create or kill human embryos. Inexplicably -- apart from political motivations -- Mr. Obama revoked not only the Bush restrictions on embryo destructive research funding, but also the 2007 executive order that encourages the National Institutes of Health to explore non-embryo-destructive sources of stem cells.

Second and more fundamentally, the claim about taking politics out of science is in the deepest sense antidemocratic. The question of whether to destroy human embryos for research purposes is not fundamentally a scientific question; it is a moral and civic question about the proper uses, ambitions and limits of science. It is a question about how we will treat members of the human family at the very dawn of life; about our willingness to seek alternative paths to medical progress that respect human dignity.

For those who believe in the highest ideals of deliberative democracy, and those who believe we mistreat the most vulnerable human lives at our own moral peril, Mr. Obama's claim of "taking politics out of science" should be lamented, not celebrated.

In the years ahead, the stem-cell debate will surely continue -- raising as it does big questions about the meaning of human equality at the edges of human life, about the relationship between science and politics, and about how we govern ourselves when it comes to morally charged issues of public policy on which reasonable people happen to disagree. We can only hope, in the years ahead, that scientific creativity will make embryo destruction unnecessary and that as a society we will not pave the way to the brave new world with the best medical intentions.

Read it here.

Mr. George is professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton and co-author of "Embryo: A Defense of Human Life" (Doubleday, 2008). Mr. Cohen is editor-at-large of The New Atlantis and author of "In the Shadow of Progress: Being Human in the Age of Technology" (Encounter, 2008).

Child Sacrifice on the Rise in Uganda

Church leaders in Uganda are condemning the killing of children for sacrifice, while demanding government action on the rituals, which many people say are increasing.

"Many are the crying mothers who have lost their children to child sacrifices. Some think: ‘If I sacrifice human blood I shall have money, then have peace and happiness’," Anglican Archbishop Henry Orombi had rued in a pastoral letter during the Christmas season. "Innocent blood is a curse to the nation and brings barrenness to social achievements."

In recent weeks, other church leaders have condemned the acts and demanded severe punishment for those involved in a process whereby children are lured with promises or kidnapped. Some children are reported to have been sold off or offered by parents or guardians, who hope to grow rich as a result. People who say they are traditional doctors are said to believe children’s body parts make their magic more powerful.

"The killing of children in the Buganda region has reached alarming levels," Roman Catholic Bishop Joseph Anthony Zziwa of Kiyinda-Mityana diocese was quoted as saying in the New Vision newspaper on January 6. Uganda media have recently reported the arrest of a Kampala property developer, who allegedly engaged two witchdoctors to decapitate a 12-year old boy in a ritual ceremony. According to the reports, the head of the child was buried under the foundations of a building being constructed, to provide magic protection for its owner.

"The government must also wake up to fight child sacrifice. The vice is a big national shock," Anglican Bishop George Tibesigwa of the Ankole diocese told a meeting in central Uganda on January 4.

In December, the government admitted that ritual killing was on the rise and promised to impose stiff punishments for ritual murderers. The ethics and integrity minister James Nsaba Buturo told journalists, "Child sacrifice has confronted the nation with its ferocity, barbarity as well as frequency. It has become a national danger."

Ritual murders are reported to be targeting children for their sexual organs, tongues and fingers, which are said to be mixed with herbs to make potions for clients.

Ethics of Harvesting Hearts

Doctors who waited just 75 seconds after the final heartbeat before removing the hearts of dying newborns for transplants said on Wednesday they improved their odds of success but have also raised ethical questions about organ harvesting.

The cases of two children who died between May 2004 and May 2007, and a third in which doctors waited three minutes, are detailed in a report and a series of commentaries in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The technique is controversial because the waiting time recommended by the Institute of Medicine has been five minutes, unless the patient is brain dead. The three babies were not, although all had severe brain damage.

But the doctors who performed the transplants said moving quickly helped save the lives of three infant recipients.

The matter is particularly critical for infants who desperately need a heart transplant. "Each year, as many as 50 infants are placed on the waiting list for cardiac transplantation but die while waiting, owing to the lack of a suitable donor heart," the journal's executive editor Dr. Gregory Curfman and others wrote.

Historically, death was defined by a stopped heart. But the longer an oxygen-starved heart sits in a warm chest cavity, the lower the likelihood it can be successfully transplanted.

So doctors are struggling to define "circulatory death," to determine when the heart has beaten for the last time once life support has been withdrawn.

Read it all here.