According to Stanford University, “Every day in the United States, 17 people die waiting for an organ transplant. The number of people on the waiting list for an organ has more than tripled over the last ten years and now exceeds 82,000 individuals; at the same time, the number of donors has remained relatively stagnant.”
Because of this, I affirm the resolution. Resolved: A just society ought to presume consent for organ procurement from the deceased.
For the sake of clarity throughout this round, I offer the following definitions:
Presume consent is defined as a system of organ procurement where people who have not stated if they wish to have their organs donated or not would be automatically put on a donor list. They have the ability to opt out of this system if they must for religious or personal reasons.
Ought is defined as a moral obligation by Merriam-Webster.
I value morality.
All people must be treated equally and we must try to save everyone’s lives equally as well. Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, Eric Rakowski1 explains:
On one side, it presses toward the consequentialist view that individuals' status as moral equals requires that the number of people kept alive be maximized. Only in this way, the thought runs, can we give due weight to the fundamental equality of persons; to allow more deaths when we can ensure fewer is to treat some people as less valuable than others. Further, killing some to save others, or letting some die for that purpose, does not entail that those who are killed or left to their fate are being used merely as means to the well-being of others, as would be true if they were slain or left to drown merely to please people who would live anyway. They do, of course, in some cases serve as means. But they do not act merely as means. Those who die are no less ends than those who live. It is because they are also no more ends than others whose lives are in the balance that an impartial decision-maker must choose to save the more numerous group, even if she must kill to do so.
Thus the value criterion is protecting lives.
Contention 1: Through presumed consent, more organs are procured and given to the people who need it the most. Spain, Belgium, and Austria are big examples of how presumed consent increases organ donation. Kenneth Gundle2 from Stanford University states:
Organ donation rates in Spain, Belgium, and Austria suggest that presumed consent might have a positive effect on rates of organ donation. In 1999 Spain had an organ donation rate of 33.6 donors per million people (a 142% increase in ten years) while in the same year, the United States had 21.8 donors per million (Matesanz et al., 1996; Matesanz and Miranda, 2000). Spain’s success was not necessarily the result of presumed consent, as its infra- structure and education systems greatly improved during that same time period, but the effect of Spain’s policy change to presumed consent may have been an important factor. After Belgium passed presumed consent legislation in 1986, its donation rates also rose dramatically (Michielsen, 1996). A frequently cited example is that of two similar transplant centers in Belgium – one in Leuven and one in Antwerp. Leuven switched to presumed consent with the passage of the law and in three years, its donation rate climbed from 15 to 40 donors per million, while Antwerp did not change its policy and only maintained previous levels (Kennedy et al., 1998). In Austria, presumed consent became law in 1982, and by 1990, the rates of donation had quadrupled, to the point where the num- ber of patients awaiting kidneys nearly equaled the number of kidney trans- plants performed (Gnant et al., 1991). Implementation of presumed consent was followed by increased organ dona- tion rates in these three countries.
5,000 innocent people die from kidney disease every year. There are over 100,000 people waiting for a kidney on the organ transplant list right now. Neera
