Wow.  I feel that this was very poorly thought through, and the suggestion is far from ‘good’.  The issues here are much more complex than the video suggests… just think for a moment — without regard to whether or not you agree — about the likelihood that:- Many people might be unwilling to accept the heart of a serial killer, etc.- There could potentially be abuse of the system, or at least accusations of abuse of the system, i.e. pressure on inmates to donate organs, potentially disproportionally saving the lives of one race/ethnic group while putting to death those of another.  The whole thing reeks of distortions of utilitarian ethics… you know – wouldn’t it be nice if we could save a lot of ‘good’ people by killing off a few ‘bad’ ones.  Nice way to make things better.- Criminals would be given a chance to martyr themselves in the eyes of some, while in the eyes of victims who believe that unending public disdain of the convicted will offer some compensation for the pain they’ve felt (however distorted that is), they will be given an undeserved chance to atone for unforgivable offenses- If society were to allow this, why not allow people to commit suicide and donate their organs?We could go on and on.  The point is that execution is not a glass half full / half empty deal… it is not a bad situation to be made the best of… verdicts handed down by the courts are not something with which to make lemonade.  The death penalty is biased and barbaric, and complicated because it is based on irrational ideas of revenge and ‘deserved-suffering’  that makes it the worst kind of situation for this type of thinking.If we want to do something good, we should put and end to the death penalty.  To act on this proposal would be stupid.

By providing a tangible benefit to society, wouldn’t that be a big boost to the continuation of the death penalty?  

psst…. GRAMMAR CHECK GOOD:”None of their organs WERE donated”.

I agree that this would just create too many problems, but more importantly, why is such a wacky solution needed to solve the deficit of organs? What we need to do is just get more people on the donation bandwagon in the first place. I don’t know about other states, but in mine, consenting to donation is ridiculous. You have to scrawl your consent on the back of your already-laminated driver’s license, and I can imagine vast numbers of people who simply don’t bother or don’t even know about it. Why not just make consent the default option? Those who don’t want to donate can fill out a special form. Then just print the information in clean letters on the licenses and watch as the number of donations takes a massive uptick.

This is one of those ideas that many people will think is so contrarian and “out of the box” that it’s a good idea. But I think it’s fraught with practical and moral dilemmas. Should a judge or jury decide to give someone the death penalty or life imprisonment – knowing that a choice for the death penalty means we can collect some more organs? How many death row inmates are even good candidates? Not to stereotype them, but I’m sure most have had rough lives and might not be in the best of health (from drugs, sickness, etc).

Personally I’d rather focus on abolishing the death penalty. Let’s not create incentives for keeping it.

I understand the logic, but I think it’s never as simple as it sounds. I fear that opening up this kind of execution to the state would turn the idea of ‘donating’ your body into having it taken. I think it would be far too easy for a legislator to see the PR value in donating prisoners’ organs to keep it as elective. To me it would, sooner or later, become exactly what your headlines inadvertently states, a full on harvest of organs, by those both willing and unwilling. 

awesome video.  To me it shouldn’t even be a consideration though – capital punishment is bananas.  Pop quiz – what does the US have in common with Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, China & Saudi Arabia …. and almost nowhere else in the civilized world?

Were I not so opposed to the death penalty itself, I’d be into this idea.

What I found most fascinating in this video, though, is the fact that people facing execution want their organs to be donated. I had no idea about that and I think it’s an indication that these people are often looking for some kind of redemption.

That is just offensively unethical.  Does the author want to even discuss the ethical issues, or just pretend they don’t exist?

What if the inmates were given the option to offer their organs for use? See ‘Seven Pounds’.

Let’s not and say we didn’t because we have some modicum of concern for
the human rights and dignity of all citizens… even what little is
left in our grisly practice of state sanctioned killing.

First, only 35 states currently authorize the death penalty.

Second, Gary Gilmore had his eyes shucked in 1977 after being the first
person executed (by firing squad) after the overturning of the landmark
Furman v. Georgia (1972) Supreme Court decision that banned capital
punishment as practiced for being cruel and unusual.

Third, we already know how these policies play out. China has more than
likely been harvesting organs from incarcerated people (e.g., Falon
Gong members) since the 1980s. As if we need to further align ourselves
with such human rights atrocities.

Fourth, the death penalty has significantly, albeit slowly, declined in
executions, sentences, and public support over the past few years. The
tenuous idea that the condemned can “give back” to their victims’
families (through “closure”) through their executions has somehow
managed to breathe new life into this dying institution. Why on earth
would we want to incentivize such thinking or practice when we are
*hopefully* nearing its demise? Why not make meaning out of the
condemned’s lives and the potential for other forms of restoration, and
not their deaths?

Fifth, I call into the question the “repeated” requests by individuals
on death row to donate their organs. This has occurred in a handful of
cases, and the well documented ones involved the condemned requesting a
stay to help save a close loved one, not one of the 98k people awaiting
organs. Interestingly, it’s law-and-order politicians and officials who
find it politically solvent to cook up such ideas.

Sixth, (and I apologize because I had no intention of going on this
long) what is the meaning of “voluntary consent” for those on death
row? This is a fantasy at best. The condemned are officially and
“civilly dead” in the eyes of the law. Any decision made under a
sentence of death hardly qualifies as a decision at all.

Thank you, whoever left the long comment, for your insight and sage judgment. After watching the video, I immediately sided with the narrator. However, after having read your response, I’m beginning to think deeper into the complexities of the subject matters at stake. Thank you.

I’m really surprised that this video doesn’t get into the moral and ethical dilemmas presented by such a program.  The “GOOD” thing to do would be to work towards the end of the death penalty altogether, not starting up a program fraught with potential for abuse.  We should be pushing for states to move towards a system where individuals have to opt-out rather than opt-in to donate organs when they receive their license.  That could save thousands more lives than exploiting death row prisoners. 

This is very thought provoking; however, I tend to agree with Danielle.  Let’s not forget the potential psychological/emotional side effects of knowing that your loved one and/or you (yourself) are about to or have received an organ from a death row inmate.  

This is not a “GOOD” idea. In fact, it’s distasteful. Why not say, “Hey, let’s grind up inmates and put them in puppy chow! Cause we love puppies and hate criminals!” Geez. Just because they’re on death row doesn’t mean they have any less of a right to their final wishes, and let’s not forget the wishes of their family members who still love them regardless of their actions. And another thought entirely: If you die by lethal injection wouldn’t that make your organs useless anyway? Because basically they just filled all your tissue with poisons, right?

yes it is a “GOOD” idea. if they going to die let someone els live by giving them a heart or a liver. it would be sad if the inmates family would dissagree on that. take a life that deserves it and give it to someone that drserves a chance at life

This narcissistic piece of provocateurism by Graeme Wood is merely a twist on “Soylent Green”; ironically, just prior to following a link from Yahoo! News to this site, I read this article, entitled “The first Europeans were cannibals…” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090624/ts_afp/spainarchaeology_20090624032253). There’s little real difference between them: the bodies of those already condemned by the more powerful faction are deemed suitable fodder for the maintenance and/or sustenance of the executioners’ group, not due to actual necessity, but because of lazy opportunism – and “’cause they just taste good”! Danielle and Nicole are on target – prevent deaths by banning executions ! Execution as deterrence is simply a rationalisation to justify institutionalised vengeance! It’s barbaric, and the statistically high degree of unreliability of “evidence” and testimony leading to convictions – as increasinglyly demonstrated by DNA evidence – reveals the unacceptable number of “murders by mistake” committed by the State in order to quench the thirst of society’s unenlightened who scream for discompassionate, unmerciful “justice“! True justice is not offered by the courts, anyway – but I digress. Organ and tissue donation should be made by only those who are utterly free to decide to do so with no outside pressure applied – and who have nothing to gain from the act except the positive karma that results from freely giving of oneself with no thought of reward. No prisoner is ever truly in that position.

well, if the inmates are offering their organs then why not just do it? (refer to the video – they offered, but the judges refused). anyway, even if you’re going to execute the inmates by hanging or lethal injection, why can’t you take out a kidney and half a liver and let the inmate lives till he is executioned? non-inmates have been living with one kidney and half a liver. of course you’ll need to check the health of the donor first. even if the kidney left in him is failing, he’s already listed to be dead. so the idea of having them die under the knife is not so bad after all. or is the point of executing the inmates is not just “you’re going to die” but more like “you’re going to die a horrible death”. i wonder. and to be fair, do it to inmates who are offering their organs. not just harvest them from those who are not willing. and since dying under the knife is probably less painful than by hanging or lethal injection, maybe all of them would be willing to donate. no one can fake a permission. you’re going to be alive until the doctor takes your heart out, or you die of other ways and the organs are damaged and can no longer be used.p/s – can you actually choose where are your organs coming from? do hospitals release infos on where the organs originating from? some people probably won’t mind. plus it’s easier to toss something you have in hand than to try to get back what you just wasted.

A   ‘provocation’ that proposes an extremely unethical harvesting of an ostracized class to fulfill the quotas of the rest of us. When I was in tenth grade English, this (in its 18th C. equivalent) is exactly how the term ’satire’ was demonstrated to the class. I would like to think that nobody seriously advocates it. I think the point is, if something as outrageous as inmate-farming seems like a logical solution, we need to step back at take a critical and creative look at the whole problem.  If there are more healthy organs dying than sick people who need them, why does such a desperate measure seem like the most reasonable option?On a practical note, that procedure would (presumably) be conducted by a licensed doctor, in which case you’d need a new doctor for each prisoner, as that kind of procedure will get your license revoked.

I am the author of the article on which this video was based, and I thank everyone for the comments.

That original article is here on the GOOD site, and it has a healthy population of comments that echo many of the concerns mentioned on this page.  You’ll also find there (both in the article itself and in comments) an expression of my views on this subject that is both less and more subtle than those in this entertaining video.

My view, in short, is that capital punishment is deeply wrong, and that the United States should move to abolish it. What the article highlights is the disparity between the moral hand-wringing we apply to the inmate-organ-donation question, compared to the lack of much discussion at all of the capital punishment issue itself.  We quibble over whether a man has a right (!) to donate (!) his liver, but we are silent about the fact that the reason he is in a position to donate his liver is because he is soon to be a literal victim of human sacrifice by the state. Surely we can find the energy to consider both moral problems.

Nice little video, but a seriously depressing collection of comments. I thought defining the word ‘provocation’ at the start of the video was embarrassingly heavy handed, but clearly I was overestimating the intelligence of the audience. Maybe it’s easier to engage with the argument with the lightness it deserves if, like me, you live in a country that has finally got around to outlawing medieval practices such as murder by the state. But actually no; there’s no excuse for such smug and humourless imbecility.

Honestly! GOOD people – no wonder we’re so f***ed up. Do you know what’s really BAD? Do you know what will be the death of us all? Righteous indignation is what. If you think your moronic, one-dimensional, knee-jerk moralisation is a viable alternative to actual thought, think again. Only imagination and a sense of humour can save us now. I repeat – righteous indignation will kill us all. Though I’m not suggesting this is an identical type of proposal, I refer you to another modest proposal, less for the idea itself than for the humourless reaction to it in 1729: http://bit.ly/modest_proposal

Sorry – in my post above I cut and pasted the word ‘embarrassingly’ from Word because I wasn’t sure of the spelling. I didn’t know it would paste such a lot of junk along with it. How embarrassing! (especially in such a grumpy missive)

i have to agree this would not be a GOOD idea.. God said though shall not murder its bad enough this country is in route to no longer value the sanctity of human life as it kills thousands of unborn babies , it is never idea to create a market from death

a bullet is cheaper!!!