Lives over pettiness

State lines should not affect organ donation

One of the medical miracles witnessed in the 20th Century was that of organ transplants. Injury and illness that once intoned certain death can now be treated. However, there remains a critical shortage of organs; approximately 5,000 people die while on waiting lists each year. The fundamental problem remains a shortage of organ donors.

While organ shortages are the root problem, politics exacerbates the problem as organs are divvied up with geographical restraints. Rather than simply using medical criteria to evaluate which patient receives an available organ, artificial boundaries determine, to a degree, who receives an organ. For instance, a patient in New York could have expected a median 511-day wait for a liver or moved to New Jersey and cut the expected wait to 56 days.

The federal government has correctly taken initiatives to limit the effect of geography on who receives an organ. This effort should be applauded and extended until donated organs are used to save the maximum number of lives. An exclusively medical paradigm should be used when deciding an organ's fate.

The opponents of such reform exist and have sought to block organ sharing measures. The initial objection is that organs cannot "survive" long enough to be taken across geographic boundaries, yet with current medical technology and efficient transportation, organs can be transported vast distances. Some have claimed that donated organs fall under states' rights, though one would have to overlook the $2 billion that the federal government gives toward organ donation and transplantation. Others have stated that it would require large amounts of effort and politics to change the system and that reform would hurt the profit of thriving transplant centers in organ rich states. Neither of the above arguments is remotely sufficient to justify jeopardizing lives.

The optimal solution would be to have sufficient organ donors to discontinue wait lists. Numerous ideas have been proposed: Switching to a presumed consent donation system, in which organs will be donated automatically unless otherwise specified; giving a small "paid gift" toward the funeral expenses of a deceased organ donor; and even commuting death sentences for inmates willing to donate a kidney. While the ethics and implications of these methods remain in question, certainly using geographical and political consideration when distributing organs remains an odious practice.