(AP) Ohio child killer’s organ donation wish perplexes
By JULIE CARR SMYTH and AMANDA LEE MYERS
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio
The stay of execution for a convicted Ohio child killer seeking to donate his organs is posing perplexing ethical and medical questions that pit demand for life-saving transplants against the goals of incarceration.
With less than a day to go, Gov. John Kasich (KAY’-sik) postponed 40-year-old Ronald Phillips’ execution Wednesday as the state assesses his last-minute request.
Phillips had asked to give a kidney and his heart to ailing relatives.
Medical ethicist Arthur Caplan of New York University says “there’s a kind of redemption” in organ donation that conflicts with prison’s goal of stripping criminals of societal privileges.
Mater (MAY’-tuhr) Alexander, a liver transplant recipient from suburban Columbus, says inmates should be encouraged to do something good before they die.
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Myers reported from Cincinnati.