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Donate Life in China
Have you gone to see any of the Body Worlds exhibits that have been travelling across the country for the past few years? They are impressive exhibits; I got an inside view of our biology unlike I will ever get again with my “avoid hospitals/anatomy labs/morgues at all costs” lifestyle.
After seeing the exhibit in Houston, I heard that the bodies used for the exhibit were “unclaimed Chinese bodies.” Unclaimed? That sounded a bit fishy to me. For years now, people have been speaking out about the fact that organs of executed prisoners are often removed without the permission of their families and then trafficked. In fact, in 2006 the Chinese Deputy Minister of Health, Huang Jiefu, said that 95% of all organ transplants in China are done using organs from executed prisoners.
Don’t get me wrong…I think organ donation is a great thing. In fact, you’ll find organ donor on my driver’s license and my family is aware of and would respect my decision, should…well, anyway…I truly believe in making something good come from an unfortunate situation. But trafficking the organs of those executed in the country responsible for 2/3 of the world’s executions?
China responded to international rage by blaming the use of executed prisoners’ organs on the fact that they had no public organ transplant program. A new campaign by the Red Cross in China is taking aim at this issue. It tries to encourage everyday Chinese to become organ donors.
Of course, for a country like China with no public organ transplant program, the Red Cross will need to do a lot of educating in order to convince people of the benefits of organ donation. These prints do a good job of showing us that we can give the gift of life by becoming organ donors. The prints take a familiar image (the fetus in the womb), and give it a whole new spin. We see full-sized adults in the fetal position inside a heart, a liver, and two lungs, 3 of the most needed organs for organ transplants.
With these prints, the ad agency JTW Shanghai has taken an excellent first step for the Red Cross in educating people in China about organ donation. However, I believe that the Red Cross has a long road ahead in terms of educating the Chinese about organ donation and convincing people to become organ donors. I certainly wish them all the best in the endeavor. I think the fact that the world’s first penis transplant was successfully performed in China in 2005 shows us that the time is ripe for change.
I can’t help but wonder if we don’t need more campaigning of this sort in the US in order to get people talking with their families about organ donation. We have 97,000 people on organ waiting lists.
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Comments
1. Tuesday 29 July 2008 attime 16:16, by r.busalacchi, Body Worlds USA :: Where do the bodies in Body Worlds originate?
2. Saturday 30 August 2008 attime 18:48, by dfl :: http://donateforlife.net
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