By Ingrid Burger
Arizona Daily Wildcat
October 15, 1997

Transplants should be available for convicts

Arizona Daily Wildcat Ingrid Burger

With May graduation 30 weeks away and a healthy 21-year-old body, winding up in prison or in need of an organ transplant aren't two possibilities which I have really considered for myself. I have yet to get a traffic ticket or take prescription antibiotics. However, recently I have become fascinated by two separate cases of men who are dying in jail and in need of immediate organ transplants.

James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr., has a failing liver and is expected to die within a few months. DeWayne Murphy, a convicted illegal drug user, has a deteriorating heart which will soon cease to function. Many believe that these two men/convicts/patients should be denied the luxury of a life-saving organ transplant and left to die in prison. They have committed crimes against society. Why should they be able to compete equally with law-abiding citizens for the scarce resource of organs?

Before I babble any further, let's bone up on some organ donation stats. The United Network for Organ Sharing reports that, as of 1996, 47,000 people were on the waiting list for transplants in the United States. The total number of organs transplanted in 1995 was 19,136. So about 27,000 people remain on the list, or die waiting for an organ. The organ shortage will become more acute as requests for transplants continue to increase while donation rates remain constant. With death eminent and a waiting list for organs roughly the size of the UA community, it's no surprise that people insist that the nationally-regulated allocation of organs be as fair as possible. I thought waiting in line for a smoothie was bad.

Back to the big house. When the shortage of organs and struggle for their just distribution mixes with sick convicts in need of transplants, we have a social dilemma. Historically, the State's treatment of criminals' bodies has been problematic. In 19th-century England, the dead bodies of convicts were regularly handed over without consent to medical schools and dissected to teach anatomy. In some instances, convicts' organs were used without consent for transplantation. These practices are prohibited today. Now, instead of being used after death, prisoners are asking to have a chance at life through transplantation.

In the case of DeWayne Murphy, federal prison officials will not let him out to be evaluated for a transplant. No evaluation means no chance of being placed on the waiting list, even though he claims that his insurance will cover the cost of a transplant. Murphy was sentenced to four years in prison. He should pay his debt to society with his time, not his life. By denying him a chance at transplantation, prison officials are giving him a death sentence. The case of James Earl Ray is a bit different. Ray was sentenced to 99 years, and thus is expected to die serving his time. Ray, like Murphy, is planning to use his own funds for a transplant, and will attempt to expedite the waiting process by finding a donor to designate him as the recipient (recipient designation is legal, but uncommon). He may run into resistance from hospitals who do not want to perform such a life-saving procedure for a convicted assassin who has stepped to the side of the national organ queue.

Certainly, states can't be expected to foot the enormous bill of organ transplantation for convicted felons. However, they have a moral obligation to allow convicts the freedom to access transplant centers outside the prison yard, register on the national waiting list, and use their own means to obtain a transplant.

And if a convict doesn't end up getting an organ in time - which is very possible - he or she should at least be permitted to die outside of prison.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with male convicts at a prison just outside of Tucson. My hands sweated for the first few minutes; I was face to face with people who had committed crimes which I consider inhumane, immoral and incomprehensible. But in two hours, I learned much from these men. Many of them seemed more motivated to learn and improve themselves than the average beer-guzzling, class-ditching college student. Yet what struck me most was a comment from an older man who had been behind bars since before I was born. He said that he woke up each morning and asked God not to let him die in prison.

Of the many ways to go, dying in prison must be the most lonely, shameful and depressing. However, terminally ill convicts often are not permitted to spend their last days in the free world of family homes or local hospitals. It seems like we could at least afford them this option. What threat is a dying convict? Surely, the extra cost of a death outside prison, if any, would be minimal. We put people in jail to remove them from society. This removal becomes unnecessary and inhumane when they are preparing to die.

Those who commit crimes and get caught lose many freedoms. The opportunities to pursue a life-saving organ transplant and to die a dignified death outside of prison are two rights of which all people, regardless of criminal record, should be assured.

With a little work and luck, you won't ever have to wait in line for life, or be denied the opportunity to do so. Eat your veggies. Stay out of trouble. Think of the 27,000 who are currently waiting for organs. And please, sign a donor card.

Ingrid Burger is a senior majoring in molecular and cellular biology.