(The Center Square) – The Texas Senate unanimously voted to ban health plans from financially covering organ transplants if the organ comes from a country that engages in forced organ harvesting or is transplanted in a country known to have participated in forced organ harvesting. The bill received bipartisan support with all 31 senators voting for it.
State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, who filed the bill, SB 1040, said, “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. 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 pointed to the practice of the Chinese government reportedly engaging “in the practice of forcibly removing human organs for transplant,” pointing to the findings of the 2019 China Tribunal in London.
A 2021 Congressional Research Service report also details human trafficking and forced organ removal in China as well as in Pakistan. Other news reports have highlighted the practice occurring in Ukraine, Mexico and North Korea, among others.
According to a nongovernmental organization, the Global Financial Integrity, the annual estimated value of global organ trafficking was between $840 million and nearly $2 billion in 2017, the CRS report notes. Since then, costs and profits have only gone up with illegal transplants costing hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the organ involved, location and other associated costs.
Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Texas, who filed a companion bill in the House, said, “It is clear to me, through several sessions of work on this issue, that the Chinese Communist Government – and other governments engaged in forced organ harvesting – see its people as a commodity. People are being sacrificed for financial gain by governments that do not care about them and it is our duty to ensure that we not help to enable these practices.”
SB 1040 would prohibit health benefit plan issuers from covering human organ transplants performed in China, or where the sale or donation of the organ originated from China or countries known to participate in forced organ harvesting. It also allows the Texas Department of State Health Services commissioner to designate additional countries who are known to participate in forced organ harvesting.
Last month, the U.S. House passed a bill addressing the same issue but imposed far-reaching sanctions. The Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act, filed by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, imposes sanctions on individuals and entities involved in forced organ trafficking.
It would require the president to report to Congress a list of people who facilitate forced organ harvesting or traffic people for organ harvesting. For everyone on the list, the bill would require the president to impose property- and visa-blocking sanctions.
It authorizes the Department of State to revoke the passports of those convicted of certain crimes related to organ trafficking. It also authorizes the State Department to deny or revoke the passports of those who’ve been convicted of a federal crime for knowingly transferring any human organ to be used for human transplants, especially if the individual is subject to imprisonment or supervised release resulting from an organ transplant related conviction or used a passport or crossed an international border to commit the crime.
U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, filed a companion bill in the Senate, which has been referred to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
This article First appeared in the center square