A bipartisan bill aimed at confronting the Chinese Communist Party’s forced organ harvesting from religious and ethnic minorities has stalled for months in the Senate, despite overwhelming approval in the House, according to its sponsor, Rep. Christopher Smith.
Smith said the legislation — H.R. 1503, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025 — passed the House in June by a 406–1 vote but has remained dormant in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for seven months. A similar measure approved by the House in 2023 by a 413–2 margin also died in the Senate.
In an interview with The Daily Caller, Smith described the practice as “‘murder masquerading as medicine’” and warned that Christians are increasingly at risk as other targeted populations are depleted.
The bill targets forced organ harvesting carried out by the Chinese Communist Party, which Smith said has expanded a multibillion-dollar industry beyond its original victims. Falun Gong practitioners were initially targeted because their healthy lifestyles made them “ideal harvesting candidates,” he said, before the practice widened to include Uyghurs, other Muslims, and now Christians, who are valued for their “pure lives.”
“They have perfected this art form of killing and stealing organs,” Smith told the outlet.
The legislation would strengthen existing anti-trafficking laws by penalizing so-called “transplant tourism,” including U.S. citizens who travel abroad to receive illegally sourced organs. Violators could face up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $1 million, an approach supporters say is designed to collapse demand for China’s “tainted supply chain.”
A spokesperson for Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, told the Daily Caller that the senator remains committed to countering forced organ harvesting but said the bill “has not been raised” with the committee.
Estimates have revealed that between 25,000 and 50,000 people are killed each year for their organs in China, alongside what he described as routine persecution of Christians and other religious minorities.
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