By
Amy Korst,
Andrew Brown,
Hanady Kader,
Maureen Trantham
November 28, 2006
You may not pay much attention to it, but you know its there.
You know it's there because, even if you're not, someone else might get to be.
Because every time a bartender or a Trader Joe's clerk asks you for your driver's license, they see a little heart that means you're an organ donor.
It's a simple choice and one that many individuals may not even know they have.
That's why, according to a recent Seattle Times article, a non-profit group called Living Legacy is speaking to Seattle high-schoolers on the cusp of receiving their drivers' licenses.
The non-profit organization schedules organ-recipients to visit highly-populated high-school classes to increase organ donation awareness.
As teenagers with whole worlds in front of them, the ideas of death and of donating organs is a little depressing, but all the more necessary.
"It's a really heavy topic, but I think I'm going to do it," Nicole Olsoe, 15, told the Times after a Living Legacy presentation. "I don't want to be selfish. It's not like I'm going to use [my organs] if I were dead. If it would save someone else from dying, then why not help?"
What many individuals don't realize about organ donation (in the three seconds one often gets to make the decision in line at the DMV), however, is that it's not about death — it's about life.
That is, someone else could be given a chance at life thanks to the stamp of a little red heart.
Living Legacy's mission should be lauded because in this region alone, more than 1,000 people are waiting for kidney transplants and 228 are waiting for liver transplants. Many of these people could live happy, healthy lives, save for the fact that far more people simply refuse to confront their own mortality and realize that, after we die our bodies cease to be our own anyways.
The next time you're in line at the DMV and the clerk asks you to renew your organ donor status, think about it. Don't be forced into a position that makes you feel uncomfortable, but know that your life and decision could mean the difference in the lives of many.
3 Comments
#1 Brynn
on November 28, 2006 at 2:36 p.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
I have heard rumors, which I doubt are true, that emergency teams and doctors may put less effort into saving people who are organ donors. Have there been any studies or is there more information about this topic that might dispell the rumor? For example, is there a practice of only checking organ donation status only after someone is pronounced dead? I am NOT intending to spread this rumor, I think it's probably an urban legend that could be debunked by a statistical analysis or clarification of procedures.
#2 Elizabeth Campbell
on November 29, 2006 at 6:49 a.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
There is a need for "donated" organs, however what's to say that this drive to get teenagers to divest themselves of their organs isn't just more of the same pressure put on them by special interests, interests that know teens are not fully mature, and who lack the experience to make truly informed decisions about their lives? This looks like one more scheme to divest teens of one more facet of their personshood. It all sounds so altruistic and highminded, its part of that selfless paradigm that we are all supposed to aspire to, but on the other hand how is it anymore right to put the bite on teenagers to donate their organs, than it is to descend upon them to get them to join our armed forces? Aren't teenagers the main targets of retail corporations and entertainment conglomerates also?
"Give me your organs!", "Give me your life", "Spend money, buy this!", "You need my entertainment!", and teenagers who think they pretty much know everything, willingly comply with these demands.
I'm not saying ix-nay on the drive for more organs, but let's put it into perspective, and that is that one more time a more vulnerable segment of society is being targeted and asked to sacrifice itself for another segment of society.
#3 Doh!
on December 29, 2006 at 1:01 p.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
Ms. Campbell's logic is a bit confused. Teenagers are not being asked to give up their organs (or to divest some facet of their personshood [sic]), they are being asked to permit the use of their organs AFTER THEY'RE DEAD. Are dead bodies really a "vulerable segment of society" worth protecting?
And as an aside, in the U.S., only adults can join the armed forces.
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