The reaction to Pennsylvania's plan to offer $300 toward the funeral
expenses of organ donors has been mixed, but strong.
While some have seen the plan as a way to skirt federal law prohibiting the
buying and selling of organs, others are anxious to determine if the plan has
any effect on the decision of family members to donate a relative's organs.
News of the program was first publicized in mid April (see Transplant News
Network, May 1), but it received more widespread attention early this month.
- In a front-page news story on May 6, the New York Times
outlined what it called "a host of thorny questions" that financial
incentives for organs could raise: Could the possibility of a stipend cause
families to withhold important medical information about the deceased? Would
poor people become donors at a disproportionate rate? Will the plan offend
people who might have donated organs without a financial incentive? Could the
plan mark the first step on a "slippery slope" toward the buying and
selling of organs? The article also pointed to the current organ shortage as
being a "testimony to the success of transplant surgery"-as more
surgeons transplant more organs, the demand for organs rises accordingly.
- In an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times on May 7, Jerome
Groopman, MD, of Harvard Medical School focused on the need to reward potential
donors while they are still living instead of rewarding the families of the
dying. "A yearly tax incentive [for potential donors] given for charity is
morally different from a cash payment to defray the costs of a specific
death-related event, like a funeral," Dr. Groopman wrote. Although he
called Pennsylvania's plan "deeply flawed," he argued that it will
serve as a catalyst for debate about how to increase the donor pool.
- On May 10, an editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
supported the program on the grounds that the need for organs is so dire and
that the amount of money being offered is so small. However, it called for
close monitoring of Pennsylvania's program, which it said "skates close to
the line banning the buying of organs." The editorial also quoted a
biomedical ethicist as opining that, because $300 represents only a fraction of
funeral costs, the stipend should be seen as a social reward rather than a
financial incentive.
- Also on May 10, the San Francisco Examiner objected to
Pennsylvania's plan, insisting that the organ shortage "must be confronted
without putting a dollar sign on anyone's chances for survival." The
editorial suggested, instead, that the organ shortage could be helped by
educational campaigns to publicize the need for donors. The editorial also
posited that a "wide-open market in desperately needed body parts would
drive up the costs for transplants financed through insurance and government
programs, and it would enlarge the advantage rich people already enjoy in
life-prolonging medical services."
-
