Death Row Inmates Research Paper

Could Death Row Inmates be a Viable Source for Donated Organs?
Angela Rogers
Ottawa University

INTRODUCTION
There is a high demand for organs and a shortage of donors in the US. We need to find a way to bridge the gap. Most Americans are wary of donating organs so why not allow convicted felons to do some good with the organs that they have? Death row inmates could be a viable source of transplantable organs. To discourage exploitation of death row inmates there should be provisions made and guidelines followed, but nevertheless they should be allowed to donate.
Supply and Demand
According to the OPTN (Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network) there are 115,720 people on the waiting list for organs; everything from kidney, liver, heart
He was convicted of killing his wife and three children in 2001. He feels like they would just be throwing away his organs and that they could be saving other lives instead. (Persky 2012) He also has been trying to set up a pro-inmate donation organization called Gifts of Anatomical Value from Everyone or G.A.V.E. There has not been an inmate that has been able to donate to a non-relative to date. There are many other examples of inmates that want to give maybe because they want to give back for their sins or maybe it’s because they have family that needs either way it seems they could save a
Chuck Graham. The bill would have commuted death row inmates’ sentences to life without parole if they agreed to donate a kidney or bone marrow, but it was not passed. (Bioethics) There were ethical concerns and opposition from organ procurement groups.
Reasons to oppose organ donation
There are some reasons that organ donations by death row inmates are opposed and they range from the high-risk environment that prisoners actually live with to infectious diseases to the way that they are executed. The testing for infectious disease is not 100% accurate but it is greater than 98%. (G.A.V.E) The current lethal injection protocols are new today they are not the old school lethal injection that destroys all the organs and blood. Most states have adopted the new one-drug protocol which preserves organ viability. (G.A.V.E)
Accepting organ donation by inmates
As long as the body is put to sleep the organs can be salvaged. There would not be any chemical abuse to the organs there wouldn’t be any electrical shock that would fry the organs and they would be viable to be transplantable. This would be a human way to be put to death and to save lives at the same time. Perales states, “The inmates’ organs would undergo the same stringent testing as any other organs procured from traditional donors before being