Organ Donation Shortages

I read Anna’s blog about Organ Donations. In the blog, Anna discussed how she believed people should get incentives to donate their organs and I agree with her. She believes that if people get money in return for their organs, more people would be willing to donate their organs or a dead family member’s organs. Anna stated that there is a large organ donation shortage; because there are more people being put on the organ transplant waiting list everyday and not enough organs are being donated to keep up with this growing list of patients in dire need of help. A majority of the population already agrees with this statement and believes that incentives should be offered to people willing to donate organs. Although, not all people feel that providing incentives will fix this organ donor shortage. Some people feel that just because there is an incentive doesn’t necessarily mean that the number of donations is going to increase. She then said that she lost an uncle who was waiting for a liver transplant. So, I agree everyone should go to the DMV and get an organ donor sticker on their driver’s license. Because according to the Congressional Kidney Caucus, up to 14,000 people who meet the criteria to be an organ donor die each year. However, less than half of those 14,000 people actually do become organ donors. Although it is tragic when anyone dies from not being able to get a transplant, it is more tragic that almost 10% of those in need of a transplant are less than 18 years old. Something needs to be done about these organ shortages, because we can’t just let hundreds of people die, when there was a cure that could have saved them.