When I was eight years old, I could only watch as my father withered away. He was in liver failure and months away from dying. That is, until one phone call. It was a call that said there was a liver available for transplant. That night, the most important man in my life got a new chance to live and I got my daddy back.
Unfortunately, not everybody gets that call. In fact, thousands of Canadians are on the waiting list for an organ transplant at this moment and an average of around 200 of them may die before this year is over according to statistics from the Canadian Association of Transplantation.
Why? Canada’s transplant system needs an overhaul. Currently, transplant protocols vary by province. In Ontario, one must sign a card that says they want to be a donor.
The thing is, most people don’t. They’re lazy, they can’t decide, they don’t know enough about it, they don’t even want to think about it…and people are dying because of it.
This is why presumed consent should be introduced in Canada. Presumed consent is also called an “opt-out” system. This means that instead of declaring you want to be a donor, everyone is presumed to be a donor. That way, you must specify that you do not want to be an organ donor, instead of the other way around.
Presumed consent increases donation rates, and countries like Belgium, Austria and Spain are proof.
When Belgium passed presumed consent legislation in 1986, donation rates rose dramatically. Austria introduced a presumed consent law in 1982, and by 1990 donation rates had quadrupled. Spain also has presumed consent legislation, and their organ donation rates have been higher than those in North America for years.
While some may argue that Canada’s medical system simply means we have less potential donors, as those who may have died instead survive, these countries are developed and have extensive health networks. We also need to do anything we can to raise current organ donation rates, and presumed consent has a strong chance at doing that.
Critics of this system say that it preys on uneducated and newly arrived Canadians because they don’t know about organ donation. They also say it changes the concept of organ donation from being considered a gift into a forced obligation.
It is the government’s job to educate about organ donation. Government money is spent doing that every year, and the toll of people needlessly taking dialysis every day or being hospitalized as they slowly slip into organ failure is incalculable. If we introduce presumed consent, we must educate about organ donation at the same time.
Whether or not someone is prompted by an organ donation system, someone who donates their organs can save several lives. The recipients of those organs will always consider their lives a gift, and so will their families.
Most other arguments against presumed consent refer to religious beliefs or moral ideas that disagree with organ donation in general. For example, some religions restrict the desecration of a body after death. However, presumed consent does not force people to donate their organs. Instead, it forces people to make a choice because right now, they are not.
Peter Kormos, an Ontario New Democrat MPP, has introduced presumed consent bills several times in recent years, only to be shut down each time.
These proposals have sparked debate, but like many bills, they have always fallen to the wayside before anything significant could happen.
It is time for this to stop, and for the government to realize that allowing people to die waiting is unacceptable.
Some people may argue that their organs are their property, not the governments. However, one could also argue that it is the government’s job to protect its citizens.
If a person dies and has not made their wishes clear, it is the government’s job to protect the living, and organ donation saves lives.
Organ donation is not high up on the priority list of most Canadians.
This is why the government must step in, to save the lives that are being lost due to ignorance and laziness.
An opt-out system would force people to make a choice. We’re an indecisive nation, if our turnout rates on election days are any indication.
Indecisiveness may be okay in some situations. It isn’t okay when children are losing their parents because someone couldn’t decide between letting their organs rot in the ground and saving someone’s life.
If I weren’t the daughter of an organ recipient, I almost certainly would not be such a strong proponent of organ donation and presumed consent because I would have no personal connection to such a medical procedure.
However, I’ve seen my beloved father transform from a frail figure barely able to walk to an athlete who plays basketball every week. I’ve watched hundreds of transplant recipients compete in long jump, golf, swimming, and other events at the World Transplant Games.
I know that organ donation works and I know that there needs to be more of it.
Canada needs to consider the rights of living Canadians over corpses and force people to choose.