US Lawmakers Step Up Efforts Against Forced Organ Harvesting in China

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The Chinese regime’s state-sponsored killing for organs is “abhorrent,” and the United States needs to take the lead in end it, said Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.).

“It’s an abhorrent practice, it is an outrage, and it cannot be countenanced,” he told The Epoch Times. “There has to be consequences and accountability.”

Mr. Perry wants his bill, the Falun Gong Protection Act (H.R. 4132), to be an impetus for change.

Falun Gong—a spiritual discipline teaching the values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, along with a full meditation practice—is a principal target of the regime’s industrial-scale organ transplant abuse. For the past 24 years the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has waged a brutal persecution against the group.

With a focus on these abuses, Mr. Perry’s bill (pdf) aims to impose sanctions on complicit individuals and bar their presence in the United States. It would also make it a U.S. policy to avoid cooperation with communist China in the organ transplantation field, take necessary measures to compel the regime to end the abuse, and work with allies and multilateral institutions to highlight the persecution of Falun Gong and coordinate efforts to sanction the regime.

Adherents of Falun Gong reenact the forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience by the Chinese regime at a protest in Vienna, Austria on Oct. 1, 2018. (Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images)

Mr. Perry saw the persecution of Falun Gong as a “genocide from the standpoint of a different belief system.”

The regime, he said, has “used the tactics of other dictatorial and totalitarian regimes in the past to demonize and dehumanize their political opponents.”

“So they might all be Chinese, of Chinese origin, but because of their beliefs, they are losing their lives, and they are being tortured based on their faith, which is unacceptable.”

Severing organ transplantation ties with China is crucial, according to Mr. Perry.

“People need to be aware it’s happening,” he said. “It’s the 21st century—they can’t just turn their head away and continue to act like the relationship that they have with members of the communist party of China, or with China directly, is appropriate while they are doing these things.”

Mr. Perry said he wants to make sure those involved in forced organ harvesting “in any way” are held accountable.

“Everybody needs to be on notice. Not only communist officials in China, but also those who would be operating in the United States of America,” as well as “American companies that would be seeking to participate and profit from these ill-gotten gains.”

To train CCP surgeons in organ transplantation or supply them pharmaceuticals or medical expertise, he said, are “all part and parcel to the crime itself.”

Falun Gong practitioners march in Manhattan to celebrate World Falun Dafa Day on May 12, 2023, in New York. (Larry Dye/The Epoch Times)

Growing Pushback

In the United States, attention to the issue of forced organ harvesting has been growing.

Texas in June enacted a law to ban health insurers from funding organ transplant surgeries linked to China. In March, the House passed a bill to punish perpetrators of forced organ harvesting by imposing property- and visa-blocking sanctions, revoking their passports, and imposing fines and criminal penalties, which now awaits the Senate’s approval.

Mr. Perry said he was gratified to see these developments.

“The states are almost always ahead of the federal government in recognizing circumstances that need to be addressed,” he said.

And, be it on the diplomatic, governance, economic, or entertainment fronts, the relationship with China cannot be business as usual, he said.

“We can’t continue to just act like they’re not occurring, and we can’t continue to comport ourselves in the same fashion, because it would be tacit approval of these occurrences, and that simply cannot be.”

Other lawmakers are also pushing for more action from America.

Reps. Neal Dunn (R-Fla.) and Michelle Steel (R-Calif.) on June 27 penned a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging his department to “take immediate action” restricting participants in the CCP’s forced organ harvesting industry from earning immigration status.

“The first-hand accounts I’ve heard from victims and survivors of the CCP’s inhumane actions are nothing short of horrific,” said Mr. Dunn. “Any Chinese healthcare professionals participating in organ harvesting are committing crimes against humanity.”

A State Department spokesperson told The Epoch Times, “We are deeply concerned by reports of forced organ harvesting targeting members of religious and ethnic minority groups detained in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).”

“The United States continues to call on the PRC government to cease its depraved actions and to act consistent with its human rights commitments and all relevant medical and ethical standards and best practices, including acting in the best interests of the patient, informed consent, and respect for personhood,” the spokesperson said, adding that the United States “seeks to ensure that individuals who are or have been involved in human rights violations and abuses do not secure safe haven in the United States.”

The official cited “a number of visa ineligibility grounds” potentially applicable to individuals “who are or have been involved in coerced organ harvesting and transplanting.”

The podium at the State Department in Washington on April 11, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

Building Awareness

Mr. Perry also pointed to a statement from the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons condemning forced organ harvesting and calling for U.S. officials and physicians to take a stance against the abuse.

“It has been going on too long, and it has not captivated the attention of the free world as it should have, but we need to continue to just work every single day to bring this to the consciousness of free people and of all the people of the world that this is occurring in the 21st century,” he said.

“I think that when most Americans are informed of that, they would find themselves in a position of having to say, ‘I will not be a part of that,’ and that is the point.”

He sees the bill, which is now advancing to the House floor after receiving bipartisan support at the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as an opportunity to bring more awareness to the issue.

“You wouldn’t allow this in your family, you wouldn’t allow this among your friends or in your business dealings. It can’t be allowed on the broader scale just because it’s another country—that cannot be allowed. The first step is acknowledging that it’s occurring, and so that’s where we’re headed.

“It’d be great if it could get a hearing and a vote in the Senate. But if it doesn’t, we’re just going to keep coming back until it does, because, like I said, the practice is unacceptable. It is abhorrent, it is barbarian, it is medieval, and it must be it must cease immediately. And the United States has to take the lead, because we certainly can’t count on the Communist Party of China to do that.”