Last update - 00:00 18/10/2007
Turn the Adi card into a binding will
By Haaretz Editorial
Israel is near the bottom of the list for people's willingness to donate organs. Even after one signs an Adi organ donor card allowing removal of organs after death, the family's consent is required.
This will remain the case under new legislation to regulate organ donation. Consent by families is actually decreasing, and no law is going to solve this.
There is no religious bar on organ donation that would explain the unwillingness to donate. It seems to stem from some exaggerated respect for the dead at the expense of the living - apparent not just in medicine.
This week a frustrated Holocaust survivor said the state prefers to commemorate those who perished in the Holocaust than to take care of its survivors. The Israel Defense Forces has put soldiers' lives at risk on several occasions to gather body parts for burial.
The shortage of donated organs is a universal problem, and every state deals with it differently. In Spain, for example, hospitals are rewarded for their success in obtaining organ donations and employ special teams for this task.
In the state of Massachusetts, the local organ donor's card is considered a will that must be honored regardless of the family's position. In Belgium, Austria and Singapore, people's willingness to donate organs after their death is presumed, unless their wills specify otherwise. England is also on the verge of such legislation.
Presumed consent to donate organs is the best solution. While people have difficulty filling in an Adi form when alive, they are usually indifferent to the idea of a post-death donation. However, the likelihood of Knesset legislation to this effect is nil.
MK Otniel Schneller has submitted a private bill to determine the time of death. The bone of contention is whether the time of death is when the heart stops beating or when the brain stops functioning. Schneller believes that an agreement between the religious and medical establishments on this matter would increase the public's willingness to donate. As it did in Italy, for example. Every effort must be made to solve this shameful situation of organ donation - in which even the families of those who have received organ transplants refuse to donate organs after death.
To shorten the long waiting lists, mainly the hundreds who need a kidney donation every year, the proposed law would reward kidney donors financially. This is intended to reduce the black market trade in human organs and institutionalize the legal reward.
The clause stipulating to reward the donor during his lifetime for an organ to be removed after death is much more significant.
Payment for organs from the dead is much more morally sound and does not tempt poor people to sell their organs.
If the Adi card becomes a legally binding will, and this is accompanied by a massive public opinion campaign to sign one plus a financial reward, perhaps the situation would improve, and organ donation from the living would no longer be necessary.