Over the last few years, a horrifying practice by the Chinese government has come to light (but has received almost no media coverage in the United States). Communist China sentences political prisoners and members of a certain religious group called Falun Gong to death by capital punishment. The method of execution is organ harvesting. Live, non-anesthetized human beings sentenced to this horrific version of capital punishment meet their fate on a hospital gurney, their bodies ravaged for parts to induce their demise. The Chinese government then profits from the sale of these body parts.
According to the Red Cross, China only has about thirty-seven registered organ donors, yet the nation yields the second-highest rate of organ transplants in the world. The harvesting of prisoners’ body parts helps to account for the discrepancy in this statistic. Although the government denies the practice, a thorough investigation by Nobel Peace Prize nominee David Kilgour and his associate David Matas leaves no stone unturned in affirming the reality of inhumane organ harvesting in China.
During last week’s House Judiciary Committee “Planned Parenthood Exposed” hearing, U.S. Representative Steve King (R-IA), drew a shockingly poignant connection between the Chinese practice and what is happening to American children at Planned Parenthood. Rep. King began by asking anti-Life witness and law professor Priscilla Smith whether she believed the death penalty was an acceptable practice. She does not. He then asked her whether she had heard of the appalling Chinese version of capital punishment:
Do you recall when it hit the news a few years ago that Red China – the Chinese – would bring criminals up on capital charges and through due process – the Red Chinese due process – convict them of a capital crime, sentence them to execution, and on their way to execution harvest their organs and use those organs in medical practices in China? Do you recall that?
Smith had never heard of the practice, but said that she “believed” Rep. King’s summation of the situation. Rep. King proceeded:
OK, well it does happen, and I recall that America was appalled by the idea that a heartless, barbaric civilization like the Red Chinese would sentence someone to death under their version of due process, roll them through the operating room on the gurney, and harvest their organs – their kidneys, their hearts, their livers, their pancreas – whatever it is they thought they could utilize at the time. And that was the harvest of the execution. We were appalled at the immorality of executing someone and harvesting their organs. Does that appall you?
“Yes, absolutely,” Smith responded. King continued:
I thought it might. And it appalls me. But I wonder what the Chinese might think of the United States of America to be borrowing half a billion dollars from the Chinese, send that money over to Planned Parenthood, that money that gets flowed through their system and ends up being utilized however Planned Parenthood decides, but we’re helping to fund an organization that is dismembering babies, harvesting their organs, and selling those organs on the market, and we heard them negotiating for price… along with the methodology that would be used in order to harvest their organs.
Rep. King then turned his attention to Jim Bopp, National Right to Life’s General Counsel. Rep. King asked him whether the belief that the Chinese practice of live organ harvesting is appalling and the belief that dismembering live preborn children in the womb was a “very humane” way to die were consistent. Bopp responded: “The Chinese are using the same utilitarian calculus that the abortion advocates here are using to justify the abuses at Planned Parenthood regarding the collection of fetal tissue.” Bopp underscored the fact that Smith’s opposition to Chinese organ harvesting and opposition to capital punishment were logically inconsistent with her support of dismemberment abortion. He said that people who support dismemberment abortion should find China’s practice “perfectly appropriate.”
Watch the riveting exchange below: