Texas lawmakers are making moves against illegal organ harvesting.
Senator Lois Kolkhorst filed Senate Bill 1040 on February 17. This bill aims to prohibit health insurance companies from covering organ transplant procedures from areas of the world that partake in organ harvesting.
This bill especially focuses on China as one of these contributors.
According to McMaster University, China has the second-largest transplant program in the world and allegedly harvests some of these organs from inside its prisons. These unwilling prisoners are allegedly executed before their organs are forcibly harvested and used in the industry for profit.
“Forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale and that Falun Gong practitioners have been one – and probably the main – source of organ supply,” said officials in the China Tribunal in 2018. “The concerted persecution and medical testing of the Uyghurs is more recent and it may be that evidence of forced organ harvesting of this group may emerge in due course,” they continued.
Senator Kolkhorst spoke with other senators during a press conference about the bill, denouncing the practice.
“Forced organ harvesting is a horrific practice. This bill not only brings this issue to more light but also prevents Texans and Texas health plans from unknowingly becoming complicit in forced organ harvesting,” said Senator Kolkhorst, according to Fort Bend Herald.
“Because health plans are regulated at the state level, Texas holds a powerful tool to combat the hideous industrial-scale practice of forced organ harvesting, particularly those of persecuted religious groups in China,” she continued.
Witness Crystal Chen, a Falun Gong religious movement member, said that she, along with others like her, were viewed as a “commodity” by the Chinese government, according to The Texan.
Representative Tom Oliverson, who had filed similar legislation, voiced his support for the bill at the conference.
“While we wait for the federal government to take action to stop this practice, the State of Texas will not wait and is taking action through SB 1040 to stop it,” said Oliverson, according to The Texan.
