Michael Smerconish commentary: Opt-out system of organ donation would save lives
The Columbus Dispatch | Michael Smerconish
Godspeed to Sarah Murnaghan and Javier Acosta, both of whom are at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia suffering from the debilitating effects of cystic fibrosis. U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson granted them relief recently by allowing each to join the waiting list for an adult lung.
This prompted the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to create a special appeal-and-review system to hear cases such as theirs in which children need access to adult organs.
While Javier is still waiting, Sarah received a transplanted lung from an adult donor just days ago. But if we really want to swell the number of available hearts, lungs, livers and corneas, there is a more obvious and expansive solution.
We need to start assuming that most people wish to be organ donors, while allowing those who object to opt out easily. The current policy in the United States is the opposite: an opt-in system.
An analysis in the Harvard Business Review five years ago noted that different organ-donation policies in two neighboring, culturally similar countries, Germany and Austria, produced dramatically different results. In Germany, where citizens must opt into the donor pool, only 12 percent of the population had done so. In neighboring Austria, where all citizens are placed in the donor pool by default â€" although they can easily opt out â€" the share of the population in the pool was 99.98 percent.
This prompted the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to create a special appeal-and-review system to hear cases such as theirs in which children need access to adult organs.
While Javier is still waiting, Sarah received a transplanted lung from an adult donor just days ago. But if we really want to swell the number of available hearts, lungs, livers and corneas, there is a more obvious and expansive solution.
We need to start assuming that most people wish to be organ donors, while allowing those who object to opt out easily. The current policy in the United States is the opposite: an opt-in system.
An analysis in the Harvard Business Review five years ago noted that different organ-donation policies in two neighboring, culturally similar countries, Germany and Austria, produced dramatically different results. In Germany, where citizens must opt into the donor pool, only 12 percent of the population had done so. In neighboring Austria, where all citizens are placed in the donor pool by default â€" although they can easily opt out â€" the share of the population in the pool was 99.98 percent.
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"You have the power to SAVE lives."
To register as a donor in California:
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org
Outside California:
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net
"You have the power to SAVE lives."
To register as a donor in California:
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org
Outside California:
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net
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