The Volokh Conspiracy

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Massachusetts Lawmakers Propose Reducing Sentences for Inmates Who Provide Bone Marrow or Organs

|The Volokh Conspiracy |


The bill (HD.3822), introduced last month by Reps. Carlos González, Judith A. Garcia, Bud L. Williams, and Russell E. Holmes, would

allow eligible incarcerated individuals to gain not less than 60 and not more than 365 day reduction in the length of their committed sentence … on the condition that the incarcerated individual has donated bone marrow or organ(s).

I actually support payment for organs, with proper safeguards (see my Medical Self-Defense article), but conditioning a reduction in a prison sentence on providing organs strikes me as going too far. (One might distinguish provision of organs from provision of bone marrow, since such provision apparently carries very modest risks to the provider, and since bone marrow regenerates quickly, though I'd still oppose even just the bone marrow feature.)

Eugene Volokh is the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA and a Visiting Fellow (Senior Fellow starting May 2024) at the Hoover Institution (Stanford). Naturally, his posts here (like the opinions of the other bloggers) are his own, and not endorsed by any educational institution.