Child killer's execution in Ohio put off after he asks to donate organs
An eleventh-hour request by a prisoner on death row in an American jail to donate his organs is raising troubling moral and medical questions among transplant experts and ethicists.
Less than a day before child killer Ronald Phillips was set to die by lethal injection, John Kasich, the Republican governor of the state of Ohio, put off the execution to examine the request.
I don’t think the kinds of people we’re executing we want to make in any way heroic
Phillips, 40, wants to give relatives a kidney before he is put to death, and his heart afterwards.
The governor said he was open to the possibility of Phillips donating a kidney or other non-vital organs before he is executed. But Kasich appeared to rule out a post-execution donation.
"I realise this is a bit of uncharted territory for Ohio," Kasich said, "but if another life can be saved by his willingness to donate his organs and tissues, then we should allow for that to happen."
Some medical experts and others warn that execution chemicals could render organs unusable. They are also deeply disturbed by the prospect of death row inmates donating organs, even if they can ease shortages so severe that patients die while on the waiting list.