Final Exam Question
Answer the following in essay form. Due in ONE WEEK.
The controversial Repeat Felon Redistribution Act (RFRA) of 2005, popularly known as the “Four Strikes and You’re Spare Parts” law, introduced some minor modifications into traditional American conceptions of justice. Inmates serving life sentences have proven very difficult to coerce, and many have been found guilty of murder, mayhem, sexual assault and narcotics trafficking while in prison. This bill provides new criminal penalties for those felons currently incarcerated under the penal laws which provide mandatory life terms for criminals convicted of a third felony. If any criminal serving a life sentence is convicted of a subsequent fourth felony, the RFRA provides that they are then generally anaesthetized and a surgeon removes their eyes, skin, liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, blood and other body parts, which are then distributed to dozens of willing recipients, many of whom would otherwise die.
The victims of these felons are given first priority in access to body parts obtained in such fashion, because they are regarded by some as the most deserving and by others as the least advantaged. Some have argued that all felons ought to make restitution to their victims. If a killer maims rather than murders his victim, and the victim’s eyes, liver or other organs are irreparably damaged in the process, the perpetrator should compensate the victim with his own organs. Thereafter, different states handle the distribution differently. These states fall into three main groups.
Group A gives the body parts away for free but only to citizens of that state, on a first come, first transplanted basis.
Group B auctions the body parts off every day, using the money to create a fund which will pay the college tuition of the children of every redistributed convict. As a result, many inmates serving life sentences petition to voluntarily have themselves redistributed as a way of helping their children in the future. Those denied the possibility of a voluntary redistribution have been known to murder the prison guard bringing the bad news so as to assure themselves a mandatory redistribution.
Group C annually takes bids from organ arbitrageurs and then uses the proceeds to pay compensation to all victims of violent crime. This group is preparing to sell “organ options” and organ specific derivatives on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to decrease market volatility. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that “June nonsmoker lung contracts were moderately higher on light trading, corneas remain unchanged and pork bellies were down slightly with traders awaiting interest rate changes by the Fed.”
There is not much left of the redistributed felon after the organ harvesting procedure, only parts which are currently useless and nontransferable are left. At this time, apart from the anomalies like Enron executives, there is little demand for felon brains, and nobody needs another appendix. (The North Korean embassy made disconcertingly large bids for the intact brains of Enron executives, intending to do God knows what with them, but the State department fearing the worst, had these brains declared weapons of mass destruction, which made their export illegal.) Different states handle these brains with odd bits of flesh attached, (known as “leftovers”), differently:
State D has abolished capital punishment so the governor has ordered the department of corrections to keep the leftovers alive in a nutrient rich vat of saline solution. He trumpets the cost savings achieved by keeping a vat of very well behaved brains and appendices compared to the cost of a maximum security prison full of dangerous inmates. The prisoners, whose vat is provided with cable TV connection, can be “jacked in” to watch reruns of The Matrix and Blade Runner and Soylent Green with minimal supervision and zero recividism. The governor solemnly calls the vat his “bad brain pickle jar”.
State E prohibits capital punishment. The governor had the leftovers buried in the prison cemetery, arguing that he was not executing the prisoner, merely disposing of miscellaneous useless body parts, as most of the redistributed inmate was still alive, albeit widely distributed and differently arranged. “If a prisoner has a tonsillectomy, what the hell am I supposed to do, give the tonsils a separate cell? he asked.
State F also prohibits capital punishment. The governor claims he can’t tell if the brain and various bits of flesh attached to it are the living inmate or not. Just in case, to avoid executing the leftovers, the state contracts for a small fee with the inmate’s mother. She undergoes a new procedure called a “Reverse Caesarian”. The leftovers are surgically transplanted into the mother’s uterus. She then claims to have detected a previously unknown right inconspicuously basking in the penumbra of her 14th amendment right to privacy. After the reverse Caesarian, she disposes of the leftovers by electing to have a procedure called an ULTIRA (ultra late term inmate redistribution abortion). She collects her fee. This leaves legal experts perplexed and divided.
State G allows capital punishment. Mercifully, the governor commutes most of a four strikes felon’s death sentence so that only the leftovers are given a lethal injection. Fractional executions are an idea whose time has come, he insists. “I’m not gonna kill Grandma’s new heart or execute some kid’s transplanted kidney because of a crime the previous owner committed” he insisted. The executed leftovers are turned into dog food and the proceeds are used to pay for the governor’s Christmas party.
State H also allows capital punishment. The leftovers are canned and sold in certain countries where eating the flesh of Americans is not prohibited by law. The lack of genetically modified ingredients is attractive to finicky consumers in Western Europe. Reeling from the mad cow debacle, the American Beef Council now touts this new product. In a plea bargain agreement, their spokeswoman, Martha Stewart, has taped a recipe filled infomercial from her cell stating, “American Inmate Brains, it’s what’s for dinner…” The proceeds of the HCEI (Haute Cuisine Export Initiative) are distributed to support family cattle farms, threatened by destruction on account of BSE problems. The EU appeals the subsidies to the WTO.
More progress is anticipated. At the demand of the governor, State X is pursuing an ambitious research program at the state university. The scientists there have succeeded in breaking up the cells of the leftovers into their constituent alleles. These cellular spare parts will be auctioned on ebay and used either to treat a wide array of illnesses or in cutting edge cyber-bio-nano-technology or as cheap fertilizer. Reprocessing the leftovers at the subcellular level will allow the governor to redistribute 100% of his state’s four strike inmates, which he describes as “cutting government waste”. If this auction is successful, the governor intends to run for president, requiring a federal mandate that all states use this new technology. He has written a moving campaign speech called, “No organ left behind” and his campaign slogan will be “Leftovers again?”.
Surprisingly, the RFRA has sparked a large amount of debate. Many utilitarians have been pleased with the RFRA because for every inmate redistributed, the lives of between 5 and 10 terminally ill patients are saved and many others are vastly improved. In addition, the number of felonies committed in prison by inmates serving life sentences has fallen dramatically. Some religious groups regard the leftovers as corpses and disapprove of the any disrespect to such remains, but they are hard pressed to explain how corpses, much less odd bits of meat, can have rights. Amputee groups insist that brains by themselves must have full human rights because if other body parts are bearers of partial rights, then amputees would not be full citizens. Citizens who have survived brain surgery by having portions of brain removed think part of a brain is sufficient to have full human rights, but they include people who have had every brain part removed so they disagree about which, if any, parts are necessary. Once the brains were redistributed at the subcellular level, however, they all were hard pressed to explain where the rights inherent in the brains or in various brain parts went. Some prisoner rights advocates think that the RFRA endorses cruel and unusual punishment, but defenders insist that there is no cruelty involved because the inmates are anaesthetized (some even volunteer for it) and far from being unusual, it is an increasingly popular option in law enforcement circles. Some Kantians have argued against the RFRA because they insist it is morally impermissible to use one human being solely as a means for the ends of others, but they are reminded that this principle has already been accepted in the trials of therapeutic human cloning, where embryos were created, parts harvested and the remains discarded for exactly that reason. Libertarians regarded the coercive aspect of the RFRA as unjust, but insisted that anyone who volunteers to be redistributed, in prison or out, has a right to do so, just as people are free to donate blood or a kidney if they choose to do so. Why not free up individuals to donate the rest if they wish?
Is the RFRA just? If it is just, what is the best response to the most serious critics? What possible objection could anyone in favor of capital punishment have toward this? If people do not have a right to avoid compulsory disassembly and redistribution by the government, what rights do they have? How, if at all, does redistributing organs differ from redistributing property? Why should critics not regard you as monstrous and bizarre and incapable of ordinary human sympathy? Is there any difference between justice and efficiency? What, if anything, does justice prevent you from doing, you monster?
Alternatively, does justice require modification or repeal of the RFRA? If it does, consider the fact that felons can’t vote. What grounds have you to tell those who volunteer to be redistributed that justice does not permit this? How can you convince those citizens who believe that the RFRA serves their interests to forego great advantages because of the demands of justice? In the case of a botched murder attempt in which the victim survived but had both kidneys destroyed, explain why it makes sense to believe that justice requires the victim to have a painful and considerably shortened life on dialysis, while justice to the murderer requires that he retain both of his kidneys, when only one is necessary. In addition be sure to explain to Grandma why justice demands that she should not get her newly redistributed inmate heart and to the child why justice requires that his new liver should become worm food. Do you possess some special knowledge about justice that these benighted people do not have? How fortunate for you. How did you obtain this knowledge? Are you certain that you have superior powers of moral discernment rather than just being squeamish? Whence arises this certainty?