Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Directed donation is not unfair

Today's Philadelphia Inquirer has an excellent opinion piece about organ donation. The author is Jason Lott of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.

Mr. Lott mentions that critics of directed donation say it is harmful because individuals could unfairly "break in line" ahead of others to receive their organs.

This criticism assumes that organs belong to the people who need them. But organs belong to donors. Federal law allows directed donation. So do the laws of all fifty states.

LifeSharers members want their organs to go to others who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die. Nothing could be fairer. Allocating organs this way also encourages more people to register as organ donors, and that saves lives.

People who won't donate their own organs have no business complaining about directed donation. They have no legitimate moral claim to a place in the transplant waiting list.

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