organ harvesting

Chinese doctors murder and organ harvest political prisoners. As detailed in “Killed to Order,” a thoroughly researched new book by Epoch Times senior editor Jan Jekielek, political prisoners such as Falun Gong practitioners and Uygur Muslims are tissue-typed and killed to supply product for the country’s burgeoning transplant black market in human kidneys and livers. This is why the wait for a vital organ in China may be as short as a week, whereas it may take years in countries with ethical transplant systems. The Chinese Communist Party is an unmitigated tyranny, and the government deploys forced organ harvesting as a means of control. But Jekielek also attributes part of the blame for the atrocity to utilitarian bioethics, a value Read More ›

On April 7, Wesley J. Smith participated in a Heritage Foundation-hosted discussion titled, “Organ Harvesting: Communist China’s Hideous Shop of Horrors.” He was joined by Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jay Richards, Representative Chris Smith (R–NJ), Jan Jekielek (Senior Editor of The Epoch Times, host of “American Thought Leaders”), Ethan Gutmann, and Bob Moffit. While the majority of the conversation centered on the human rights abuses occurring in China, Smith warned the audience not to be blind to similar atrocities happening here in the West: [T]his is about what’s happening in China — let’s call that a 108-degree fever. But what’s happening in the West, along similar lines, is a 102-degree fever. So you have bioethicists in the most notable medical and Read More ›

On April 7, 2026, the Heritage Foundation will host a discussion among experts on the Chinese Communist Party’s practice of forced organ harvesting on its citizens. Wesley J. Smith, Chair and Senior Fellow of the Center on Human Exceptionalism and host of the Humanize podcast, will be among the list of panelists. Also presenting will be long-time Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jay Richards. Other panelists include Representative Chris Smith (R–NJ), Jan Jekielek (Senior Editor of The Epoch Times, host of “American Thought Leaders”), Ethan Gutmann, and Bob Moffit. From The Heritage Foundation event description: They will examine reports of forced organ harvesting associated with the CCP, explore the broader human rights implications, and review current legislative initiatives in the U.S. Read More ›

An article in The Lancet decries the recent 17th World Conference on Bioethics, Medical Ethics, and Health Law for failing to condemn “genocide.” Of course, the authors are referencing Israel’s self-defense in Gaza. From, “Silence on Genocide at the World Conference on Bioethics:” Between Nov 24 and Nov 27, 2025, the International Chair in Bioethics held its 17th World Conference on Bioethics, Medical Ethics, and Health Law in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Despite being hosted in a nation whose President has vocally condemned the “genocide in Gaza” at the UN, the conference stood in stark contrast to its setting. No scheduled sessions discussed the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, representing a profound disconnect between the event’s location and its content… If an organisation claiming Read More ›

Once someone is considered killable or supported in suicide, they may become objectified so as to be used instrumentally. Such is the case with people requesting to be euthanized. The idea is that they are going to die anyway, want to die — even as they do not receive suicide prevention — so we might as well get good use out of them such as by conjoining their hastened deaths with organ harvesting. This abandonment (in my view) is rife in Canada, where in Ontario, a patient approved for a lethal jab will soon receive a call from the organ procurement society asking for their organs. The Netherlands and Belgium also permit conjoining organ harvesting — including of mentally ill Read More ›

I welcome Lawrence Masek’s response to my criticism of his journal article. I am sorry he didn’t appreciate my perspective, but I take nothing back.

Let’s start with a matter of little importance. Masek claimed I said his article would curl your toes. No, I wrote that I cover articles published in the professional journals because “some” of them would. Whether your digits react to his effort thusly is a matter for you to decide.

As to the substance of his rebuttal, Masek claims at great length that the dead donor rule, which forbids killing for organs, would also prohibit many common interventions in clinical medicine as “suicide.” He writes:

Permitting lethal organ procurement would enable patients to commit suicide by donating their vital organs, but the same is true of permitting lethal palliation and the refusal of life support.

This is verifiably untrue. Dying from a side effect of an ethical medical treatment like palliation is not suicide any more than a patient dying during heart surgery is euthanasia.

The “dead donor rule” (DDR) is a legal and ethical mandate that requires vital organ donors to be truly dead before their body parts are procured. A corollary to the rule holds that people cannot be killed for their organs. The DDR promotes trust in the system and protects the vulnerable — but is flexible enough to permit living donations of one kidney and parts of a liver from altruistic donors. Utilitarian bioethicists have long argued against the DDR and its corollary based on the notion that killing those who are dying or want to donate will relieve the suffering of people who want to live and need an organ. And here we go again. The Journal of Medical Ethics Read More ›

The black market in human organs does not receive nearly enough attention. China is probably the worst offender here, with political prisoners like Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghur Muslims arrested, tissue-typed, killed, and harvested to supply well-off buyers who don’t want to wait in the donation queue. We are far too nonchalant about that murderous commerce. Now, a gruesome story out of Nigeria vividly illustrates the sheer evil of this trade in human tissues. From the Daily Mail story: Over 100 decomposed and mutilated bodies have been discovered in a suspected illegal organ-harvesting slaughterhouse in Nigeria. Police have sealed off a hotel and private mortuary in the Umuhu autonomous community in Ngor-Okpala district in southeast Nigeria’s Imo state following a Read More ›

In China, they’re killing people for their organs. China’s secret, state-run forced organ-harvesting genocide is bigger, darker, and more gruesome than anyone could imagine. In this explosive interview, Dr. Torsten Trey, Founder and Executive Director of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), exposes how Falun Gong practitioners became the CCP’s largest pool of victims with millions detained since 1999. They’re blood-tested in custody not for their health, but to match their organs to waiting buyers. Dr. Trey reveals how China built an on-demand transplant system, where organs — even hearts — appear within days. The only way that’s possible is if living prisoners are being killed to order. He walks us through the massive surge in transplants after 1999: internal Read More ›

Jim Geraghty posted about Xi and Putin discussing the attainment of immortality through biotechnology, specifically, through the technique of repeatedly replacing organs. I have nothing to add to his post except this: Harnessing technology to attain hyper life extension or immortality — such as by uploading one’s mind into a computer or, as Putin and Xi discussed, repeatedly having one’s organs replaced — is the transhumanist delusion. Transhumanism is mostly a materialistic wail of despair in the night, a desperate quest for hope for those who are terrified that death leads to obliteration: Carbon molecules you were and carbon molecules you shall be. I assume, as a vile Communist, Xi believes this, too. On the other hand, Putin claims to Read More ›