The Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) passed legislation on Thursday prohibiting organ harvesting from military and civilian casualties of Russia’s invasion. The measure, Law No. 9558 “On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine on Improving the Organization of Medical Care Using Transplantation”, received broad support with 254 of 313 lawmakers voting in favor.
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20250111022357/https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/01/ukraine-parliament-bans-organ-donation-from-war-casualties/
Russia is currently returning Ukranian POWs with organs harvested, so they are funding the war with organs. Nobody is denying that they’re not saving lives (what else are you going to do with organs?), the problem is, can the process be verified accurately enough to prevent criminal harvesting of organs ?
During a war, things are hectic. Hectic enough that if there are rogue members harvesting organs, claiming they’re doing on official orders, but much later are found out to be acting on their own accounts, they are not detected and acted on promptly. Even if everyone sees it, who will question it ? Even during peace times in highly regulated countries, doctors still go on for a long time doing things they’re not supposed to before being caught. By then several innocents have suffered. Where is a country with severe lack of manpower for war going to find more manpower to run an organ tracing and verification committee?
Additionally, Russians are currently running a disinformation campaign against Ukranians saying that certain Ukranian officials are involved in an organ harvesting scheme, which allegedly Ukraine wants to stamp out doubts through legislation.
Personally I’m against this. I don’t think there are enough mechanisms to prevent abuse and the potential for harm is immense. I wouldn’t even trust a country with less corruption issues on this, and Ukraine has considerable corruption issues. Organ donating is fine, but war is not the time for it.