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There is a shortage of suitable donated human organs in both quality and quantity. This shortage ranges from blood and skin to kidneys and hearts. Now a capitalist would say that we could create a "market" in these organs and that would increase the supply, but very few people in the Western world believe that it is ethical to do so.

It is not necessarily true that a person's organs decay with the body after burial. In the United States, because of the funeral industry, most Americans are buried embalmed. In the process of embalming, many organs are destroyed or removed in the preparation of the corpse. Many, many people would be surprised with how little of the deceased actuals gets buried. The rest just gets thrown away.

When you couple this the death rate on our nation's road ways, a tremendous amount of usable tissue and organs is simply going to waste.

Opting out is not at all unusual in daily life. The doctor does not ask "would you like a blood transfusion" after your auto accident. Rather, the emergency room doctor will give you that transfusion unless you declare you have religious objections to receiving a transfusion. On the TV, no one asks you if you want to opt out of commercials. To the contrary, you need to buy additional hardware so you can "bleep" them out. And at the funeral parlor, no one will ask you if you want a Catholic funeral mass. They only way you'll get one is if you demand it and make arrangements with a priest yourself.

At least with organ donations, you could simply indicated your desire not to do with a check mark on a form. Surprisingly, that simple check mark is the major cause of our organ shortage. People are filled with misinformation about organ donation, but many are not per se against it. They just can't be bothered. So like the robbery victim lying in the middle of the road, organ donors wait for the Good Samaritan to come, but for many he comes too late.

Learn more about this author, John Cooper.
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