New System Might Increase Organ Donations

Nov. 24, 2003 — -- Bill Greisling waited three years for someone to help him breathe.

Finally, this past May, hospital workers called the 62-year-old father of six and grandfather of 15, to let him know that help had arrived. A high school student had died in a car crash on his 16th birthday and Greisling would receive his left lung.

"I can't tell you how grateful I am," said Greisling, who, before the surgery couldn't even walk to his mailbox without running out of breath due to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive disease of the lung. "You start looking at life very differently — all you want to do is help others."

According to a Gallup poll, 83 percent of Americans understand the benefits of organ donation and approve of the practice but only 28 percent have granted written consent to release their organs if they die. Since 1995, more than 45,000 people have died waiting for an organ donor.

Some say the problem lies in a reluctance to make what can be a very uncomfortable decision. They say a new opt-out system, which would assume people are donors unless they specify otherwise, could dramatically increase the number of donors and save lives. A similar example lies in the do-not-call telemarketing system, where it is assumed telemarketers may call people at home unless they add their names to a do-not-call list.

But because releasing your organs to medicine after death can be such a profound decision, critics say adopting a similar opt-out system for organ donation would also introduce all kinds of ethical land mines.

"It's a really emotionally hard decision to make — you have to think about your own demise," said Eric Johnson, a social scientist at Columbia University. "It's easier to not think about it at all."

Numbers from some European countries show that forcing people to confront the decision can make a big difference.

In several countries, including Austria, Belgium, France, Hungary, Poland, Portugal and Sweden, authorities assume everyone is willing to be a donor — with the approval of family after death — unless they say otherwise in written form. In those countries, 85 percent to 99 percent of people are on paper as willing donors and actual donations are higher by about 56 percent.