re: Lawmakers propose letting Massachusetts prisoners donate organs for reduced sentences

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What if they die out of state???.. what if spouse denies on religious grounds???

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Bone marrow is from living donors.

the post you responded to didn’t make a lot of sense and seemed inflammatory but your post is also quite inflammatory and will guide this thread into the toilet I think

Let’s get this bad boy back on topic.

Yeah! They should be good for something.
Maybe we should build a wall with their names on it to encourage them in the name of Civic Pride.

I’ve seriously not been able to stop thinking about this issue. I see both sides.

I think at the end of the day, it’s a good idea. But protections need to be set in place to make sure prisoners aren’t being essentially farmed for their organs and marrow.

I’m not going to claim to know what all the safeguards should be.

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There is absolutely nothing about this legislation that increases criminalization or incentivizes it. So once again, irrelevant.

Again, please make a constitutional argument. Nothing delights me more than people who throw “it’s unconstitutional!” around when it’s abundantly clear they don’t know what’s in it.

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Your hand waving analogous examples is less than ideal. Here's another: it's been an open question for decades whether it's an Eighth Amendment violation to offer to reduce a sex offender's sentence if they volunteer for chemical castration, and if so, whether that violation can be knowingly and intelligently waived. While different states have ruled differently on the subject, to my knowledge, the question has never reached SCOTUS.

And at least in those instances, the pain and/or loss of function is directly related to the convicted offense. Prisoners being offered reductions in sentences in return for pain (bone marrow) and loss of function (organs) that have, quite literally, nothing to do with the convicted offense is a step further down the path, in my opinion.

The core of all of these examples, from sex, to experiments, to chemical castration, to organ donation, is that as a rule, we don't allow those in government custody to "consent" to a whole host of things someone can consent to when not incarcerated.

Did I maybe go too far with my "almost certainly" language? Maybe. Do I think it would get struck down under an Eighth Amendment analysis? Yes, I do. Reasonable people can disagree on that point, but if you're arguing that this is somehow outside the scope of the Eighth Amendment, I would ardently disagree.

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Are lazy. My hand waving analogous examples are lazy.

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Incorrect. The agreement is based on "My hand waving", not the plural "examples". Regardless, I actually immediately edited out that bit because I wasn't looking for a fight

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Also, you gave the examples as if they were analogous. I just pointed out your logic was fatally flawed.

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Sure. Anything to add re: chemical castration?

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I swear, I see both sides of this situation. I haven’t landed on an opinion yet. But every precedent you tried to set to prove it unconstitutional was horribly flawed. I’d genuinely be interested if there was a better precedent to point to, but yours weren’t it.

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The root of your issue is that you're looking for me to "prove" that it's unconstitutional, which is impossible, because there isn't any controlling case law on this particular point. As such, all we can do is argue by analogy. Based on similar issues, like that of chemical castration in return for a reduced sentence, I think it's clearly ripe for Eighth Amendment analysis. You seem to be taking the position that this question wouldn't touch on the Eighth Amendment, which I find extremely surprising.

I’m asking you to “prove” or at least make a “valid legal argument” that it’s unconstitutional because you said, and I quote:

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This is almost certainly unconstitutional.

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Irregardless, I would love to read a SCOTUS ruling on this issue.

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I've already softened that language to, roughly, "I believe it would be deemed unconstitutional under an Eighth Amendment analysis". I've already explained why, citing to the questions revolving around chemical castration in return for reduced sentences, and why I would view this as even worse due to the lack of relation to the crime.

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Fair. And I think your argument is valid.

Just for fun, and I genuinely mean that phrasing because I think it’s an interesting discussion, how is donating bone marrow a far cry from being let out early for good behavior?

You’re not fulfilling the entire sentence given to you because you’ve taken efforts, voluntarily, to prove you deserve to be reassimilated into society.