Your Organ Donor Status Matters

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Recommended: The importance of organ donation

"I think you should automatically donate your organs because that would turn the balance of organ donation in a huge way. I would donate whatever anybody would take..." -- George Clooney According to the Organ Procurement and Transportation Network, a branch of The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there are over 134,000 people awaiting the lifesaving gift of an organ in the United States. At sixteen, all I could think about was getting my license and finally gaining my independence. The night before going to the DMV my mom helped me file the paperwork, shocked that her little girl was going to be behind the wheel. When she came to the question of becoming a registered organ donor, I quickly responded “No! I do not want my organs in someone else’s body after I’m dead! I want to be buried whole and complete!” After a brief discussion, in which my mom tried to explain what being a registered donor entailed, I still held my ground on NOT becoming a donor. I had no idea then the impact the system as a whole would have on my life. At sixteen, when I made my decision not to become a registered donor, there were many things I did not know about donation and the donation system as a whole. Many misconceptions of donation were at that forefront of my mind, as they are the first things many people think of when they think on donation. The biggest and most popular reason to not become a donor is a strong mistrust in doctors and the entire medical system. Tiffanie Wen, a freelance writer who has written articles on the topic of organ donation, recently wrote in The Atlantic, “Quick [an associate professor of communication at the University of Illinois] and his colleagues have studied how watching Grey’s Anatomy ca... ... middle of paper ... ...n the Default Choice or Allocation Rule." Journal of Health Economics. 32.6 (2013): 1117-29. Print. Millman, Jason. "One Way to Boost Organ Donations: Just Keep Asking." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 18 Aug. 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2015. Parker-Pope, Tara. "The Reluctant Organ Donor." Well: New York Times. The New York Times, 16 Apr. 2009. Web. 10 Feb. 2015. Richards, Janet Radcliffe. "Opting in and Out: A Methodological Case Study." The Ethics of Transplants: Why Careless Thought Costs Lives. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012. 7+. Print. Teresi, Dick. "What You Lose When You Sign That Donor Card." WSJ. Wall Street Journal, 4 Apr. 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. Wen, Tiffanie. "Why Don't More People Want to Donate Their Organs?" The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 10 Nov. 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2015.

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