Lucia Dunn, a professor of economics at Ohio State University, told The Epoch Times she strongly supports the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act because she believes live organ harvesting is “one of the greatest crimes of humanity our civilization has ever seen,” and people should do everything they can to stop it.
During the House debate, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said that through open-source investigation and witness accounts, it has become clear that communist China is engaged in “state-sponsored harvesting of human organs from otherwise healthy human beings, on a systematic and industrial scale in absolute violation of ethics governing transplantation.
‘We Need More Action’
In an interview with The Epoch Times on April 1, Dunn said she supports the bill, but the U.S. government must take more concrete action to stop the Chinese regime’s inhumane practice of forced organ harvesting.“I consider forced organ harvesting one of the greatest crimes of humanity our civilization has ever seen. ... Of course, I greatly support [the bill], I’m greatly in favor of [it],” she said.
“My only concern is this doesn’t go far enough. We need more action. And, of course, this is only the House of Representatives. The Senate has to pass it; the president has to sign it. We’re still a long way from, you know, getting what we need in place.”
The bill, authored by Smith, requires the U.S. government to report to Congress a list of perpetrators involved in organ harvesting and trafficking crimes, and the U.S. president must impose property- and visa-blocking sanctions targeting each person on the list.
It also authorizes the Department of State to revoke the passports of individuals convicted of criminal activities related to organ trafficking.
Stop Americans From Going to China for Organs
Dunn believes the United States needs to “take greater steps,” particularly raising awareness to prevent people from going to China for transplants, thus cutting off the source of demand.“You see that there’s a supply issue, and there’s a demand issue here. I’m an economist. The demand issue means we’ve got to stop people from going there to get the organs. We need to give the public a lot more information about it so that people who are tempted to go to China to get an organ understand that some innocent people have been killed to get that organ. We need to publicize that more,” she said.
Dunn said she understands that those people who need organ transplants are desperate, and the patients on the waiting list for a kidney, a liver, or a heart will have to wait for years.
“The Chinese transplant hospitals used to have ads on the internet that would say things like, ‘We can get you a liver within 48 hours.’ That’s crazy! You can still find these ads, as a lot of people took screenshots of them.
“We know that they’re killing innocent people. They’re killing spiritual and religious disciplines, Falun Gong, underground Christians, the Uyghurs. ... And we need to help people understand that so that they will stop going there to get the order,” Dunn said.
The center advertises online that donors can be found quickly: “If you send your personal information to the center via email or fax, or come to Shenyang, China, to undergo the necessary tests to identify a compatible donor, a liver transplant can be done in as little as one month, or at most within two months. For kidney transplants, the fastest time an HLA-matched donor can be found is one week, and the longest is less than one month.”
An ad that Dunn saw in person read: “Donor organs are available immediately! Contact us before your condition worsens.” The ad also highlights that “under Chinese law, organs are provided by state-run hospitals.”
CCP’s Transplant Ads Expose Atrocity
Dunn said that the CITNAC ads made her realize that the CCP is killing innocent people.“They were saying, ‘Come over, we can get you all of these organs that are so hard to get.’ You know, they were just saying they have an endless supply. ‘We can get you one with almost no wait. Just contact us immediately.’ There used to be a price list of what you would pay, just like they were selling auto parts. ... After I saw that, I became convinced that they absolutely are killing people for those organs,” she said.
According to Dunn, the ads that she came across marked the prices of organs, such as $62,000 for a kidney transplant, $98,000 to $130,000 for a liver transplant, $160,000 to $180,000 for a liver-kidney joint transplant, $150,000 for a kidney-pancreas joint transplant, $150,000 to $170,000 for a lung transplant, $130,000 to $160,000 for a heart transplant, and $30,000 for a cornea transplant.
Israel’s Example
Dunn believes that the United States should follow Israel’s legislation: ban not only the sale of organs, but also the purchase of organs.“It’s not like we can send in the Marines over there and invade those hospitals and drag people out and put them in front of the court and charge them with murder. ... So I think right now what they’re thinking is the best thing we can do is keep those people out of the country. But as I said, I think we need to raise awareness … to stop the supply side, if we can stop American citizens from going. That’s what Israel tried to do. Israel tried to stop their citizens from going,” Dunn emphasized.
Dunn also gave two suggestions for further sanctioning the CCP for live organ harvesting: stop training transplant surgeons from China, and stop collaborative research with Chinese transplant surgeons.
“When they [the CCP] send those doctors and young medical students over to our hospitals to get trained to do transplants, they’re training them to go back and kill people.”
