PHOENIX, Ariz.—A Republican-sponsored bill in Arizona seeks to combat forced organ harvesting in communist China, where prisoners of conscience have been killed for their organs on a large scale for more than two decades.
At a news conference in Phoenix on Feb. 5, House Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci (R), the bill’s sponsor, said HB2504 would restrict financial support for organ transplants from China and “other foreign adversaries.”
The bill, also known as the Arizona End Organ Harvesting Act, would discourage Arizona residents from “inadvertently” contributing to forced organ harvesting by engaging in “transplant tourism.”
In most cases, the waiting time to receive an organ transplant in the United States is one to three years. However, in China, a patient can receive a new kidney or liver in as little as two or three weeks and at a lower cost.
“This is something that is seriously happening. We need to do something about it.”
“In transplant tourism, voluntary donors receive payments for donating their organs. In contrast, forced organ harvesting in China is unprecedented,” according to a DAFOH fact sheet.
“Organs are sourced from prisoners whose lives are, under the pretext of ‘execution,’ actively terminated. The practice shakes the very foundation of medical ethics.”
DAFOH reports that from 1999 to 2004, transplant numbers in China tripled to around 10,000 annually despite the lack of a voluntary donation program.
At the same time, the number of transplant centers increased by more than 300 percent to around 800.
“The onset of the persecution of the Falun Gong in 1999 coincides with the exponential growth of the transplant industry in China,” DAFOH added.
Dr. Churchill said anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million prisoners are currently in Chinese prisons.
Organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China is seen as one aspect of the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Gong, which the regime saw as a threat due to the spiritual practice’s popularity among the Chinese population.
Falun Gong involves meditative exercises and moral teachings centered on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. In the 1990s, the practice grew by word of mouth to reach as many as 100 million adherents in China by 1999.
Crystal Chen, a Falun Gong practitioner now living in Houston, Texas, spoke as a witness to the practice of forced organ harvesting at the Feb. 5 press conference.
Arrested by Chinese authorities multiple times for her beliefs from 1999 to 2004, Ms. Chen said she was severely tortured in prison and subjected to medical tests.
“These tests were not done for our well-being,” but to identify compatible organ donors, she said.
The information from these medical tests went into a database for organ matching, Ms. Chen said.
“Had my blood type and tissue type been a match for an organ recipient, I would not be here today,” she said.
Some U.S. universities may unknowingly contribute to the forced organ harvesting industry by training Chinese transplant surgeons in collaboration with research hospitals, Ms. Chen said.
Ms. Chen said she supports HB2504 in Arizona as a way to stem the inhumane practice.
Han Yu is another person affected by forced organ harvesting in China who spoke at the gathering in Phoenix.
Ms. Han said that in 2004, the authorities detained her father, who was a Falun Gong practitioner, and two months later, her family learned he had died of a heart attack, even though he was healthy before he was taken.
When she saw her father’s body before cremation, she was shocked to see “white stitches over his body.”
“The incision went from his throat all the way to his abdomen,” indicating surgical removal of his vital organs.
Three years later, she would learn that untold numbers of other prisoners of conscience had been killed by the CCP for their organs.
“My father was likely one of those victims. I don’t want my father’s death to have been in vain. We must stop forced organ harvesting in China,” Ms. Han said.
Diana Molovinsky, a member of Phoenix Falun Dafa Association, said at the press conference that HB2504 would restrict medical insurance payouts for aftercare for transplants involving forced organ harvesting.
“I think the act in itself is so mortifying; even if there was one person who went over there did it, that would be enough to say this shouldn’t happen,” she told The Epoch Times.
“It’s considered a military secret. They [the CCP] don’t have to disclose the patients who are being killed.”
Ms. Molovinsky said many doctors from China who receive medical training in the United States don’t know their skills will be used in forced organ harvesting “as part of this genocide.”
“They think they’re coming here to have a life-saving skill to go back and use for good,” she said.
Prisoners who undergo forced organ harvesting receive no anesthesia, and the surgery is itself the manner of execution, she said.
“They’re lined up like cattle” and chosen based on whether there is an organ match, Ms. Molovinsky said.
“There’s an understanding, if they put them under [anesthesia], it could do something to the organs or could make them less viable. The act in itself is the execution.”
Ms. Han testified during the International Religious Freedom Summit in 2022 against forced organ harvesting as a gross violation of human rights.
