NDP members Peter Kormos and Cheri DiNovo plan to introduce - for the third time - a bill calling for a system that assumes people want to donate their organs when they die.
There is no doubt that a presumption of consent would increase the number of organs available. And that would save lives.
Religious leaders are trying to explain this -- see Rabbi Reuven Bulka's piece in the Thursday, 17 July 2008 Canadian Jewish News.
http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15035&Itemid=86
See CBC story here:
http://news.sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/Ontarios+NDP+calling+for+law+presuming+automatic+consent+for+organ+donation/Local/ON/ContentPosting?isfa=1&newsitemid=on-organ-transplant&feedname=CBC_LOCALNEWS&show=False&number=0&showbyline=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=True
8 comments:
There is no doubt that a presumption of consent would increase the number of organs available. And that would save lives.
I think that the "presumption of consent" is what worries me. You see, we can donate organs in the case of death if we want - it's on drivers license.
Why change now? It's like those annoying automatic renewals...
Why change now? Maybe you would understand if you were in the pediatric cardiac wing of the Hospital for Sick Children, as I was in February, where an 11-year-old girl (on the same floor as my daughter) died waiting for a heart to become available for transplant.
What about people who don't have licenses? How do we get consent then?
I think the presumption of consent serves the greater good.
If you are dead, you don't need your organs... why not let them help someone else.
as for the link to the Rabbi's article, thank you for posting it. I, for one, was under the mistaken impression that organ donation was against the Jewish faith.
Why have the automatic presumption that I want to give my organs?
The greater good? That's a rather slippery slope.
Maybe I don't think that the State should be spending all that money on a transplant (and associated cost) while the money could be better put to use such as improving medical service for many others.
When I am dead, I don't particularly relish the prospect of some Med student dissecting me.
While your anecdote is fine for the heartstrings, I don't think it has much place in this debate. It sounds like the kind of excuse people use to place CCD cameras everywhere (the children will be safer or some other nonsense).
Bottom line, organ donation should be a voluntary choice - not something imposed.
Cherniak, settle down. I'm sure the new proposed legislation would allow some facility for people to "opt out". That way, those like you who would rather let your organs rot in a grave or burn in an incinerator, could have their way.
p.s. the Sick Kids story was not to tug at heartstrings. It was a really, live 11 yr old girl, whose parents I had to sit next to in the waiting room where they escaped to from time-to-time while watching their daughter die.
As an aside Rabbi Bulka's article was given considerable press, likely to emphasize that organ donation is ok.
sure the new proposed legislation would allow some facility for people to "opt out". That way, those like you who would rather let your organs rot in a grave or burn in an incinerator, could have their way.
It is a question of ethics. Something that you clearly lack.
Involuntary organ donation is what you are asking.
Welcome to the New Cannibalism.
Maybe we should assume that the dead want to be turned into dog meat also....
well, that's the fear isn't it. We want our bodies held sacred even in death -- and even if that causes others to die.
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