Reading Response #7

The Case for Mandatory Organ Donation, written by Scott Carney and published in Wired Magazine was an exploration of America’s organ donor program. I read the article, not in print form, but online at Wired Magazine’s website. The article’s webpage has a large picture of a little girl at a tsunami relief camp in Chennai, India. The article, though, has nothing to do with the picture. There are several other links of articles relating to this one, discussing organ donation and transplant as an illegal trade in impoverished countries.

Scott Carney’s article is focused on the American organ-donor program and its inefficiencies. He found that most obstacles in the American system are centered on the surviving family members. Many times they are unwilling to follow the donor’s wishes. The current shortage of available organs is not from a lack of viable cadavers, but from a system in need of major repair.

America uses an “opt-in” organ donation system where the people must choose to be apart of the system, otherwise their organs are not considered for legal transplant. Several other leading countries use an “opt-out” system where the people must choose to not be apart of the system, otherwise the government imposes “presumed consent.” The case for presumed consent is that it increases organ availability anywhere from 16% to 50%.

Carney gives two good arguments to support mandatory organ donation, or at least bring awareness to the problem of organ donation in America by discussing autopsies in cases of ambiguous death, and mandatory draft registration. In each instance that government strips away the sanctity of the body for the greater good of the nation. If the people can’t fix the problem, the government can.

Should organ donation be mandatory for all bodies? I don’t think so, even though I opted in for organ donation. I think the opt-out method should be mandatory for all people with life insurance. In this manner the organs stay within a structured system that is already in place, people can still choose to keep their organs after death, and the bereaving family will not bottle-neck the system.