SW News: The US House of Representatives passed legislation on Monday night that would subject anybody involved in the forced harvesting of human organs to punishment and fines.

The Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023 was introduced by Catholic Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, and passed with a vote of 412 to 2. Now it will move on to the Senate.

According to this law, sanctions as well as civil and criminal penalties may be imposed on anyone who is funding, sponsoring, or otherwise facilitating the forcible harvesting of organs. Individuals involved with the forced organ harvesting industry could face civil penalties of up to $250,000 and criminal penalties of $1 million and up to 20 years in prison.

Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, a medical ethics group, hailed the bill as a "significant step forward" in the fight to "raise crucial awareness" about forced organ harvesting, but it thinks further action is needed to stop medical tourism to China.

On March 27, the House overwhelmingly approved the bill HR 1154 to hold communist China accountable for its forced organ harvesting program against political detainees. The action represented the first non-symbolic legislative response to the atrocity in the United States.

For many survivors of the regime's persecution of their faith who have sought refuge in America, the news of the bill's passage was heartening. The persecuted faith group Falun Gong has been deemed as the primary victim group of the regime’s illicit organ trade.

In China, the spiritual practice grew significantly in popularity in the 1990s due to its moral and health benefits, eventually drawing between 70 and 100 million people by the end of the decade.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched an elimination campaign in 1999 because it believed this support posed a threat to its authority. As a result, millions of supporters were imprisoned, and over the course of the following 23 years, an undetermined number of people died as a result of torture, forced labour, and other abuses.

After a year-long investigation, an independent tribunal in London came to the conclusion that incarcerated Falun Gong practitioners were the main source of forced organ harvesting, which had been going on "on a substantial scale" in China for years. Its final judgment released in March of the following year, which included 300 pages of witness testimony and submissions, found “no evidence of the practice having been stopped.”

Israel, Taiwan, Italy, and Spain have already outlawed organ transplant tourism on a global scale. Although they have openly condemned the regime's forced organ harvesting, the US Congress, the European Parliament, and different municipal authorities have not yet passed any legislation.