Your new eyes might be Chinese.

Organ donors are usually selfless individuals that are willing to give up a piece of themselves, in life or death, in order for someone else to live. On the other hand, victims of the ghastly and macabre crime of organ harvesting are unwilling and involuntary ‘donors,’ whose living body parts are sold on the black market to the highest bidder.

The international practice of organ harvesting is an abomination that should be addressed by the civilized countries of the world.

In China, many political and religious dissidents sentenced to death find themselves incarcerated in facilities that resemble detention centers or concentration camps. There they are ultimately vivisected and their organs are sold, both domestically and internationally, according to Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH).

According to DAFOH, the prisoner’s tissue compatibility is systematically analyzed and stored in data banks. This process allows Chinese transplant surgeons to provide donor organs including the kidney, heart, pancreas, liver, skin, and cornea on short notice. The organs are often sold to rich patients overseas. When an order comes in for a particular organ, a compatible prisoner is quickly processed and the organs are taken while the patient is still living.

Most of these prisoners are members of a religious sect of Buddhism called Falun Gong, according to DAFOH.

According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, Falun Gong is an advanced practice of Buddhism and focuses on self-cultivation. It was founded by Li Hongzhi, the practice’s master. Falun Gong members are the primary victims of forced organ harvesting.

There are 300,000 patients waitlisted each year for an organ in China, and only one in 30 will receive a transplant, according to CBS News. At the end of 2012, about 64 percent of organs transplanted in China came from prisoners. While the Chinese government actively harvests organs from executed prisoners, it claims that it is only done with the prisoner’s consent and only after the prisoner has been executed.

Falun Gong practitioners have done nothing to deserve this barbaric treatment. The Falun Dafa Information Center suggests that the religious group is being persecuted because the Chinese Communist Party fears a religious-led revolt.

But this issue is not strictly in China.

Georgia teen Kendrick Johnson was found rolled up in a gym mat Jan. 11. The first autopsy ruled his death as an accident, claiming he was “reaching for a shoe.” However, his family believed that his death was a result of foul play, and in May a judged approved that a second autopsy be performed, according to ABC News. The second autopsy revealed that his organs had been removed and replaced with newspaper.

The article went on to say that the private pathologist that reexamined the body believed that Johnson was likely murdered.

Sometimes the only way to save another life is to transplant an organ. However, it is wrong to take organs from a living human. The Western world should take a strong stand against all forms of non-consensual organ harvesting and put a stop to this grisly practice.

-Chelsea Keyes is a sophomore communication major from Tacoma. She can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of Student Publications.