Should Deceased Organ Donation Be Mandatory?

How do you feel when you’re waiting for something you really really want? Or what if it’s not even something you want, but something you need? Something you cannot live without? Now imagine yourself in a dark, gloomy hospital room waiting to receive an organ that is crucial to your survival? Imagine knowing that there are over 110,000 other

An organ donation consists of the removal of organs and tissue from a donor and then transplanting them into a person who is in desperate need of an organ. The majority of transplants occur when the donor is deceased, in situations where the donor is alive they may give one of their kidneys or part of their liver to a patient. Around 1,600 Australians are waiting for a life-changing transplant. Waiting for an organ can be up to weeks or months, meaning that many people past away waiting for a transplant.

“6,935 people are dying because they had to wait. That’s 19 people dying per day for an entire year”(Barry). That’s nearly 7,000 lives; which is equivalent to to almost 25% of the current undergraduate body here at UW-Madison. According to Dr. Chris Barry, a transplant surgeon and researcher at the University of Rochester Medical Center, “19 people die per day on the organ donor recipient list because there aren’t enough people signing their organ donor consent forms”. He proposes that we need to increase people's knowledge and tear down the myths and barriers of organ donation to facilitate their decision to donate.

Everyday, twenty-two people die waiting for an organ transplant. Patients on the donor list are in need of an organ and are depending on it for survival. Some patients are on the list for weeks, months, even years with sno match. Comparatively, 6,316 people die every hour with viable organs that can be used. Doctors are not legally allowed to use these organs unless given consent by only the patient before death. If all U.S. citizens donated their organs, transplantations could occur and save thousands of lives each year. Organ donation should be required in the United States because of the significant number of lives that could be saved everyday.

Organ donation is the medical process of voluntarily giving one or more of your organs to someone in need, whether it be someone you know or a stranger. It is strictly voluntary, no payment for the organ/s will be given from the hospital, the recipient or the recipients family. In organ donation, there are two types of donations, living organ donation and deceased organ donation. Living organ donation is when the donor is still alive and voluntarily chooses to donate one or more of their organs to a recipient(s) in need. Whereas, deceased organ donation happens after the donor has passed away, and consent was given to be able to donate their organs.

How do you feel when you have to wait for something that you really, really want? What if it was something you couldn’t live without? Imagine you are lying in a hospital bed and you have no choice but to impatiently wait for that one organ you and your body are depending on to survive. Many people face this struggle every day. These people are waiting on a list for their perfect match… the perfect person to be their organ donor. An organ donor is a person who has an organ, or several organs, removed in ordered to be transplanted into another person.

D. Thesis - Organ donation and Transplants are the most remarkable success stories in the history of medicine. They give hope to

Attention Getter: Let’s look at the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network. They tell us that 116,567 people need a lifesaving organ transplant. Of those, 75,685 people are active the waiting list candidates. There are only 12,212 donors total donors as of 2017.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, every ten minutes a name is added to the National Transplant waiting list. As of December 1, 2015, there are 122,477 people that need a lifesaving operation and are on the transplant waiting list. While on the waiting list, there is an average of 22 people that die every day. So far, only 23,134 transplants have been done in 2015. (U.S. Depart.of Health and Human Services) This incredibly low number of transplants is why more people should become organ donors. Choosing to become an organ donor provides the opportunity to save up to eight lives and improve the quality of life for many others with tissue donation. An organ donor can also provide comfort to the grieving family: the loss of the loved one will be helping others to live. Becoming an organ donor is much easier than many think. The decision can literally be done in just minutes.

As we all know when a person dies the body decompose which depend on the ground they are buried, or cremated based on the religion that person believed. However, instead of letting our healthy organs be eaten by insects and decomposing it we can try to save a person in need. Based on donate life America, an organizational team who support and encourage people to sign up to be an organ donor and according to their information and research there are more than 117,294 people of all ages and gender currently on the wait list for an organ transplant in United states concurrently. “The process of organ donation can save as many as eight lives through the surgical transplantation of organs from a donor of recipients.

Each day approximately 6,300 people die and what makes this haunting is that there 83, 513 people waiting for organs to be donated, yet each day 17 people die because they do not receive a transplant(Gregory, 2011). Organ donation is one of the most admirable things to do in the medical field. Organ donation has been identified as the removal of an organ from one human being’s body to another person’s body who is in need of it(Caplan, 1999). Major issues that have been concerning organ donation is respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, utility, beneficence, and justice(Caplan, 1999). I will be arguing the importance of organ donation and show that it is necessary. I will demonstrate that organ donation is a positive attribute to the medical field and will hopefully increase the number of potential donors there is around the world and, as a result, save more lives.

Flashback to when you were sixteen years old. Young, naive, and about to be ruling the streets with your very own Driver’s License. You passed your written and physical driving exams, but before you are able to get your “right of passage”, you must indicate whether or not you are willing to donate your organs in the case of your death. But how does one know which box to check? It is your responsibility to educate yourself in the matter because ignorance is not always bliss. Knowing the costs, benefits, and process can be very beneficial. Luckily, the following is some basic, and maybe not so basic, information on the topic. Organ Donation is a very broad and complicated topic. To consider organ, and tissue, donation as a whole, it is important to examine the history, forms, and big picture of the donation.

People are dying due to the lack of people donating organs. According to Mayo Clinic in a November 2017 article over 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for an organ transplant. Also, it’s estimated that every day in the U.S. twenty-one patients die because of lack of organs. There are various diseases and health issues that led to the need for an organ transplant. Those include but are not limited too: heart disease, diabetes, hepatitis, cystic fibrosis, and cirrhosis. Someday you or someone you love could need an organ and die waiting for one. We all know everyone is going to die sometime. According to the University of Rochester Medical Center in an April 2015 article funerals are difficult. Yet a final gift can save lives and bring healing to other families. Something positive can come out of the pain. Mr. Dave Orr, a near and dear friend of my families, suffered from non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. In March of 2015, he was told by the doctors that a liver transplant was the only option left for him to get a second chance at life. Mr. Orr was put on the UNOS liver transplant list and was patiently awaiting a new liver. Due to the thousands of people waiting for organs, they knew it would be awhile until he received one. After many months of waiting the doctors knew that his time left on earth was closing in; they had to go to the only other option- a living organ donor donation. They only resort to this if it is the only option and it is an organ that is able to be given without harming the donor. After testing all of his family they realized that none of them were a match for what his body needed. That was when my parents decided they were going to help. My dad got tested first and sadly was not a match. My mom then felt compelled to get tested as well. She was a perfect match. Soon thereafter a date was set for the transplant surgery, February of 2016. It was almost a full year of searching and

Organ donations can be transplanted to individuals in need of a specific organ or tissue, due to an accident, disease, or a condition that an individual may have encountered. Popular demands of organs variety from eyes, skin, liver, kidneys, heart, pancreas, lungs, bones, arteries, and veins. Though a donor can be alive or dead, all organs

Although 95% of United States citizens support organ donations, only 54% are actually donors ("Organ Donation Statistics"). Many people do not donate because of the many myths they hear. Do not let them fool you. The main myth that stops people from donating is believing the hospital staff will not try