New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky almost lost his daughter, Willie, at 4 years old when she needed a kidney transplant, and again a decade later when her other kidney failed. Her struggle to find a donor was hardly unusual; some 10,000 New Yorkers are currently waiting on a list for donors, and part of the reason finding them is so challenging is because many people don't consent to organ donation on their licenses. So this week Brodsky introduced a bill that would automatically enroll all New Yorkers as organ donors, unless they opt out. Such a "presumed consent" law would be the first of its kind in the U.S.
"Overseas, 24 nations have it. Israel has it. Others have it. And it works without a lot of controversy," Brodsky told CBS2. "We import half the organs we transplant. It is an unacceptable failed system." The number of New Yorkers currently enrolled in the state Organ and Tissue Registry puts the state in last place among all states, according to the national group Donate Life America.
But won't this just open the door to vast government-run organ donor concentration camps? As one internet commenter upstate puts it, "I am horribly insensed [sic] at this proposal. What an infringement on civil rights. 'Presumed consent' is straight out of Orwell. Imagine the people in hospitals and such who will be exploited. It is a selfish proposal." Huzzah for the selfless patriots fighting for their rights to let their organs rot underground. It is in the Constitution, dontcha know?
