How To Get Out Of jail....Without All Of Your Organs

Did you see the story about the kidney transplant/prison release? The governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, agreed to release two sisters who were serving life sentences in prison for leading two men into an ambush in Mississippi in 1993, on the condition that one of them Gladys, 36, donates a kidney to her sister Jamie (who will continue expensive dialysis the state of Mississippi has to pay for without the new kidney) within one year. Having spent 16 years in jail and facing a life in prison sentence, they took the offer. This kind of governmental action is most odd. The sisters have now been released, but there is currently no date set for the kidney transplant.

Organ donor trading is illegal everywhere and this offer borders on that. At the very least it is organ extortion. Even though sister Gladys came up with the idea for the deal, that a sitting governor of a U.S. state would approve of it is shocking. Governor Barber was a big wig in the Bush administration and is considered a leading a candidate for the Republican nominee to opposes Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. I can't imagine how trading organs for parole will help in that quest. But then what voters respond to today is hard to figure.

Obviously, there is great pressure on a prisoner to "donate" an organ if he or she is given release from prison in return. It is hardly a decision based on free will and sets a bad precedent for others in jail and as away for government to coerce citizens to do things it wants them to do. I remember a few years ago one politician proposed sterilizing welfare payment recipients in return for a guarantee to continue the many cash payment and other entitlements one gets here when she chooses not to work and instead live off taxpayer funding. The idea was it would be cheaper for the states to pay off the welfare ladies than to let them keep producing more babies (stats show that people on welfare have many more kids than those not on it) that require even more entitlement payments.

That idea was shot down quickly on the basis of it being coercive and as "racist" (due to the high percentage of blacks on welfare and having illegitimate babies). No doubt in this situation many will also protest it on the basis that it is coercive. I wonder if other states will copy this and release hardened criminals in order to save money, as is being done in this case. How does that put citizens in jeopardy from further crimes from those released? Too, the bigger question is whether government should become involved in private decisions about organ transplants, even if it is the payee (as in this case) for the treatment of the organ disease.

Finally, what other organizations or individuals might try to trade for organs given the example given by the state of Mississippi, a legal governmental entity that seems to endorse such policies? But I expect opposition to this kind of action to be so great that this one may be an exception rather than a new trend.