Romanian women are supplying the U.K. with their eggs for infertile couples and now we hear that death row inmates in China are the suppliers of organs for Brits in need of an organ donation. While we may disagree on capital punishment as a means for ‘just desserts’ all of us should be seriously concerned with the murky ethical land we find ourselves in when organ donation is tangled up with people on death row. I continue to maintain that organ donation needs to be firmly rooted in a spirit of altruism (read-GIFT), something that is freely given. Never bought, sold, traded, bartered or coerced. Whenever the word “market” is used when discussing organ donation–I get concerned!

Author Profile

Jennifer Lahl, CBC Founder
Jennifer Lahl, CBC Founder
Jennifer Lahl, MA, BSN, RN, is founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. Lahl couples her 25 years of experience as a pediatric critical care nurse, a hospital administrator, and a senior-level nursing manager with a deep passion to speak for those who have no voice. Lahl’s writings have appeared in various publications including Cambridge University Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, and the American Journal of Bioethics. As a field expert, she is routinely interviewed on radio and television including ABC, CBS, PBS, and NPR. She is also called upon to speak alongside lawmakers and members of the scientific community, even being invited to speak to members of the European Parliament in Brussels to address issues of egg trafficking; she has three times addressed the United Nations during the Commission on the Status of Women on egg and womb trafficking.