Organ Donation — Should Need or Willingness to Donate Control?

The debate continues to rage regarding the basis on which scare organs should be allocated to patients needing them.

One view, such as that advanced by LifeSharers, is that individuals willing to donate organs should have priority to receive organs.  Because of our system of presumed non-consent to organ donation, there is a large shortage of organs for transplantation.  There is an inherent fairness in having organs made available first to individuals who have indicated their willingness to donate their own organs.

On the hand, some individuals believe that willingness to save others is irrelevant that the need should be the sole criteria.  See Editorial, Need should govern who gets transplants, News-Record (Greensboro, N.C.), April 24, 2008, claiming that the willingness to donate causes that person to be “regarded as more deserving of a heart, lungs, liver or some other organ — and therefore more deserving of a chance to live — solely because he or she promised to return the favor if the circumstances were different.”