A few people have wondered about this, myself included, from time to time. But I don’t think we’ve had any thought about the practical aspect.
That is: Out of all the “death row” inmates in the United States, how many could have their organs and tissues harvested, if their method of execution didn’t damage them? How many inmates have medical histories (AIDS, Hepatitis…drug abuse?) that would preclude them from donating organs?
I know Gary Gilmore’s corneas were harvested, after his execution by firing squad. And China’s pretty (in)famous for harvesting the organs of people they’ve executed. (Of course, they also execute people for things like tax evasion. That might skew the “sample” of donors.)
Think about the methods we use in the US. Lethal injection probably makes the organs icky-they didn’t function too well for the deceased, now did they? Ditto for the gas chamber, and grilling probably doesn’t leave them in the best of shape.
It’s as good a reason as any to bring back the guillotine or hanging.
Just recently I watched a documentary that was on HBO that was about inmates that were incarcerated at Rikers Island, this documentary was filmed back in 1994 and an incredible proportion of the inmates had HIV, though it didn’t give specifics on death row inmates. I would not be surprised if the number of infected inmates has risen in the last ten years though.
According to my high school bio teacher, the answer is close to zero. The little-known fact is that among the entire population, the percentage with organs that are actually usable even if they agreed to it is quite small. Only 10,000 to 14,000 meet the criteria for donating, out of almost 4,000,000 who die in the country each year. This is for donating internal organs including heart, lungs, and kidneys; others may still be able to donate for corneas or skin grafts.
The health of the donor must be close to perfect at the time of death. If not, then the organ has a greatly increased chance of not being damaged beyond repair by the recipient’s immune system. Death row inmates tend not to be in great health, the result of ten to fifteen years of imprisonment and the tremendous strain of the trial and appeals process. Consequently, they generally wouldn’t make good donors.
I never thought that one day I’d provide a cite from a site called kidney.org, but I guess stranger things have happened.
Messed up the second sentence in the second paragraph. Obviously I meant to say that if the donor is not healthy, then it’s more likely that the organ will be damaged by the immune system.
Only if by “the criteria for donating” you include giving consent and the family giving consent. As that site says “35 percent of potential donors never become donors because family members refuse to give consent.” and that’s just those whose families refuse, it doesn’t mention those who specifically rule sit out themselves.
You need to understand that organ donation is essentially limited to those people who become brain dead while in hospital. That’s a tiny fraction of all deaths. That doesn’t really relate at all to the OP which asked about deliberate executions. You can’t use the low rate of people suffering brain death in hospitals to say “the answer is close to zero” for those people who are deliberately executed. It’s quite irrelevant since we are assuming that the method of execution is tailored to the organ harvest.
I would also like to see a reference that “The health of the donor must be close to perfect at the time of death” for organs to be harvested. AFAIK the only restriction is that the harvested organ needs to be healthy.
