Posted on 11/13/2006 1:11:32 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Sigrid Fry-Revere is director of bioethics studies for the Cato Institute.
Just last week, seven New York funeral home directors pleaded guilty to stealing organs from thousands of bodies, including that of broadcaster Alastair Cooke. Bizarrely enough, the federal government's looking to get in on the same action.
At a meeting today and tomorrow, the Department of Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation is expected to recommend that states adopt policies of "presumed consent" for organ donation.
In other words, authorities could harvest organs from your dead body without prior permission from you or your family.
If the government is really concerned with getting donor organs, it shouldn't rationalize stealing them, it should amend the National Organ Transplant Act to give people incentives for donating them.
The situation is dire. Some 93,000 Americans are now on the list to receive donated organs; last year, fewer than half got them. Twenty Americans fdie every day waiting for an organ that never comes.
No one seems to doubt that paying people to donate their organs after they die would dramatically increase the number of organs available - but government bodies hesitate to allow it.
Sometimes, this reaches the height of Orwellian doublespeak. At last month's meeting of the President's Council on Bioethics, Dr. Peter Lawler declared that the very idea that people own their organs was an "offense [to] dignity."
HHS and the President's Council are considering presumed consent because appeals to altruism aren't producing enough donations. So why won't they consider letting donors get compensation? It could be cash, tax deductions, lower insurance premiums or health-care benefits.
Right now, the National Organ Transplant Act prohibits all of the above. This 1984 law makes it a crime "to knowingly acquire, receive or otherwise transfer any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation."
In banning the sale of organs, Congress was reacting to abuses involved in black-market organ sales in developing countries. Since then, Congress has considered several incentives; in 1986, it decided to pass a "required request" provision that obliges hospitals to ask relatives about donating organs whenever anyone who could serve as a donor dies. This did boost donations, but not enough to keep pace with growing demand.
Some fear that legalizing payment for organs will lead to people being murdered and plundered for the riches of their innards. It's a fair concern, but paradoxically, more of a worry when payments are prohibited than when they're allowed. The current ban has created a thriving black market that wouldn't exist if there were a legal means of buying organs.
The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, created by Congress in 1984, could maintain the exclusive right to broker the sale of cadaver organs and keep the arrangements strictly confidential. Hospitals and others with legitimate interests in buying organs could be barred from accepting them without proof that their owners had expressed a desire to sell or donate them. The OPTN could use the revenues it received for organs to cover funeral expenses or simply contribute them to the estates of the deceased.
If direct payments cause queasiness, Congress could legalize insurance incentives or tax breaks for those who agreed to donate their organs. Insurance companies could provide discounts for organ donors, as they do for non-smokers.
Each of these proposals has its pros and cons, but HHS and the President's Council should at least consider having Congress amend the Transplant Act to allow incentives before rushing to suggest that governments go cannibalizing the dead.
This article appeared in the New York Post on November 2, 2006.
That dovetails nicely with the government choosing when doctors can withhold food and water from their patients.
I have seen otherwise with my very own eyes.
you can say anything you want but empirical evidence suggests otherwise.
I'll give up my organs at death for a $20,000 donation to the NRA, or no deal!
What a great way to support your favorite cause when you kick the bucket.
Leave my Wurlitzer alone!
if no one will pay any money for them they must have no value, they cannot argue they are worth taking yet worthless
MaDuce, you're worth no less than $20,000,000. Go for it.
I'm all for $20,000,000 for my family's pain and suffering, and the medicos should do it for free.
I don't have a problem with denying organs to people who don't want to be donors. It's your right to take 'em to the grave with you , but then you can die for lack of a kidney for all I care. (not 'you', but the general you)
take this to the logical conclusion.
MANDATORY LIVING DONATION.
you don't need two kidneys, mandatory tissue typing banks SHALL REQUIRE, you donate one of your kidneys. Also applies to 1/3 of your liver since mostly it will grow back.
Of course nobody is mentioning that adult stem cells may make all this moot.
Later pingout for sure.
Well, I am for VOLUNTARY organ donation. If yo want to do that, that's fine, no problem.
I have an enormous problem with "PRESUMED CONSENT" where the government, unless you have told them no, will take your organs from you without asking anyone.
How many 'persistent vegetative state' problem cases are we going to have with this approach?
'Forced giving' isn't a virtue. Haven't we understood it with government wealth redistribution, now it's moving into our own organ distribution?
My advice if this becomes the norm is don't lose consciousness when you're in the hopsital.
Snopes is not God. Not saying they're wrong here, but they were wrong before. They're also avowed liberals. I looked up some stuff about Hillary and they got it wrong.
"Soylent Green is people"
Something to ponder: Regarding kidneys, for the government and private insurance companies, I'm fairly certain that the cost of paying for a transplant and follow up care is far less than paying for someone who spends years on dialysis (which we are all currently paying for right now). If that is the case, then for everyone posting who says its about the money, in the long run, transplants are the way to go.
Thanks for posting this...
How can funeral directors be doing this? I thought the organs only last for five minutes after the heart stops beating (except for the kidneys, which last a bit longer). Could it be that bodies are being shipped live to the funeral home?
Maybe not directly. But. Think of the hospital bills, surgeon bills, medication bill, etc. There is money being made off of organs.
Don't see how that follows at all. I just mean you won't donate, why should you receive?
"they collect when you die"
Hmmm...that might shorten your life considerably. They would want you to die healthy, I think.
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