TORONTO (CP) - The Ontario government will have to consult the public more fully before it can consider becoming the first province in Canada to make every eligible resident an automatic organ donor unless they say otherwise, Health Minister George Smitherman said Monday.
I am a supporter of organ donation. It lists me as a donor on the back of my Driver's License. And I strongly believe we need to do a whole lot more education about organ donation to help increase the number of usable organs that are donated.
But I have to say that this proposal reaches too far. Presumed consent just isn't ethical or pastoral. There has to be a better way to get the message out there.
A comment that was e-mailed to me (orignally spoken many years ago by a woman whose husband was the recipient of a donated organ):
ReplyDeleteHer thoughts were moving to “an opt out rather then an opt in” was to become a taking society rather than a giving society. An interesting perspective from a family deeply involved with the issue.