A Modest Proposal

Lethal Injection Chamber, San Quentin Prison

I have a modest proposal for mitigating the burden on society of its most violent criminals, and for in fact making them beneficial to the public.

Since the Supreme Court’s reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, nearly 1,000 executions have taken place, including 59 in 2004 and 28 so far in 2005, the last on June 8 in Texas. In 37 states it is carried out by lethal injection, and in ten states by electrocution. Five states preserve the gas chamber as an alternative to lethal injection, while two offer hanging, and two more permit firing squads as alternative methods. Despite being limited to the most extreme criminal acts (mere murder is seldom sufficient), use of these methods of carrying out the sentence is cruel and barbaric. More information HERE.

It is also extremely wasteful.

Each execution represents the discarding of the criminal’s heart, kidneys (2), pancreas, lungs (2), liver, intestines (about 23 feet (small), and 5 feet (large)), corneas (2), skin (more than 21 square feet), bone marrow, and heart valves (4). These materials, properly harvested, could help dozens of individuals, and save six or more lives for every executed criminal.
More information HERE.

This being the case, it seems criminal not to require that executions be performed in a way that would permit such harvesting, and that all executed criminals be required to have their organs and other useful body parts used to save other citizens.

What could be more reasonable than that a criminal – who has already forfeited his life by his crimes – should be required to benefit the society whose members he has murdered, raped and tortured? Viewed properly, there can be no objection: The criminal is to be executed in any event, and medical use of his organs represents many lives saved or materially extended. There is no detrimental effect, and there is very great public benefit.

Think also of the effect of this program on how the death penalty itself is viewed. Presently there is much controversy arising from the understandable fear that innocent persons may be sentenced to death. When the judge, the jury, the family of the accused and the public all know that by imposition of the death penalty there will be traded (at worst) one probably-guilty life for many saved lives, how great will their relief be? And even if the question of whether the death penalty has a deterrent effect is never satisfactorily resolved, it is completely beyond question that one person’s death is multiplied into literal life for many.

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country.