China rolls out national organ donation program

China is extending its public organ donation program as part of continued efforts ...

Speaker: David Matas, Canadian international human rights lawyer and expert on organ harvesting in China

MATAS: I suppose it's progress but it's basically cosmetic because the Chinese government relies, and the Chinese hospitals and the Chinese system rely almost entirely on transplants on organs from prisoners. And they don't have the traditional sources, donations and accident victims.

MATAS: It becomes very easy to ignore donations or to downplay donations when there's a ready source, even it's a disreputable source, people don't feel the need for donations because there's all the organs they need from prisons. My view is they shouldn't be using prisoners and they shouldn't be phasing out prisoners, they should be stopping the use of prisoners cold turkey. Some of them are prisoners sentenced to death, some of them are political prisoners, prisoners of conscience, Falun Gong practitioners, Uighurs, Tibetans, and that shouldn't be happening under any circumstances. And if people saw the need for donations in order to have organ transplants, the growing of donations I think would increase.

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