WASHINGTON—A recent documentary screening on forced organ harvesting in communist China sparked concerns among audience members, who said the state crime needs greater public awareness.
During their search for missing loved ones, families uncover a chilling reality—an organ harvesting industry operating under the sanction of China’s communist regime.
Stansell said she was impressed by the film’s impact on her fellow Rotarians and others in the audience.
“When I turned around and saw everybody’s faces, saw tears in their eyes, I think that that’s what probably impressed me the most and touched me the most,” Stansell told The Epoch Times.
She said it was her second time seeing the film, but this time, the idea that someone could be forcibly disappeared in China touched her in a “profound way.”
“That’s more than just kidnapping,” Stansell said. “They’re just gone … no hope.”
Kenny Loveless, a Rotarian for more than 30 years, told NTD, the sister media outlet of The Epoch Times, that his heart went out to the families trying to find their missing relatives.
“For the families that always hold that little bit of hope that their children, their child, their brother, their sister, might be returned home, that’s a torture that they live with every single day,” Loveless said.

During the question-and-answer (Q&A) portion of the event, an audience member said she was “astounded by the gravity and the brutality.”
“I cannot believe that I didn’t know anything about this until today,“ she stated. ”How do we get this film out? Because I can think of hundreds of people that I could show this film to.”
Dr. Andreas Weber, a surgeon and the Germany-based representative of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, shared during the Q&A that he knew of a patient in Germany who had traveled to China to receive a liver transplant due to alcoholism.
Weber said she had a rare blood type, but China was able to find a matching organ for her within six months, which he described as “unthinkable” in countries where organ donation systems are based on ethical values.
“So, she paid 400,000 [for] a liver. And since she’s an alcoholic, one wasn’t enough. So she went down there three times, and she bought three livers,” Webster said. “She paid 400,000 each.”

Claudio Roberto Brown, a member of the Southern Harford County Rotary, emphasized the gravity of the issue.
“It’s not some local guy in the back room somewhere in China; this is the highest level of government,” he told NTD.
Sam Caughren, a retired medical doctor in family practice, said he would like to see the U.S. government take action.
“I would like to see the government not allow individuals here in the United States to be able to go to China to receive a transplant,” Caughren told NTD.
“That’s one of the things that I think would help to really decrease the possibility [that] they’re able to use such a huge network of individuals as donors.”