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Israel to launch pioneering "organ for organ" donation programme
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Israel is launching a pioneering "organ for organ" donation programme: Sign a donor card, and you and your family move up in line for a transplant if one is needed. The new law is aimed at boosting organ supply in the country.
Currently, only 10 percent of Israeli adults hold donor cards, compared with more than 30 percent in most Western countries. The actual rate of families donating a deceased's organs is 45 percent, but in other countries it is 70 percent, Dr Jacob Lavee, director of the heart transplant unit at Israel's Sheba Medical Center.
Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority oppose the law, which is the first of its kind in the world, saying it discriminates against them because their religious convictions prohibit the donation of their organs.
Most leading Orthodox rabbis — as well as Israeli law — agree that a person dies when his brain-stem stops functioning. A minority opinion, endorsed by ultra-Orthodox rabbis, holds that as long as a person's heart beats they are alive and therefore their organs cannot be harvested. However, donation in Israel after cardiac death is rare and only done in special circumstances.
Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority oppose the law, which is the first of its kind in the world, saying it discriminates against them because their religious convictions prohibit the donation of their organs.
Most leading Orthodox rabbis — as well as Israeli law — agree that a person dies when his brain-stem stops functioning. A minority opinion, endorsed by ultra-Orthodox rabbis, holds that as long as a person's heart beats they are alive and therefore their organs cannot be harvested. However, donation in Israel after cardiac death is rare and only done in special circumstances.
Dr Lavee, who helped draft the law, hopes that a broader pool of organs will ultimately benefit everyone, but he acknowledges that one of his primary motivations is "to prevent free riders."
"This is the first time that a non-medical criterion has been established in organ allocation," he said. "It will rectify the unfairness of the situation where people who are unwilling to donate wait in the same line as those who are willing."
The Health Ministry's legal adviser, Meir Broder, said the new bill was still being debated among ethicists, lawyers, doctors and religious leaders.
"We are trying to find the point of balance between encouraging people to sign donor cards and not penalize those who don't," he said.
[Source: Yahoo! News]
[Source: Yahoo! News]
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