Why doesn't the U.S. have an Organ Donor Lottery?

Question

As many of you know, there are several thousand people who die each year while waiting for an organ transplant. The main reason is because there are not enough people who sign organ donor cards. Here's the solution: We establish an organ donor lottery, where people who have signed cards and die and donate organs (suicide excluded) are entered into a lottery where their beneficaries could win a million dollars. There would not just be one winner each year, but 20 or 50 winners. So, the possibility that a person who has signed a card, died and donated an organ would win is quite high. The donor would would be doing the right thing - signing the donor card to help strangers as well as his family. Wealthy benefactors would be eager to finance the lottery in order to save thousands of lives. This is a win-win situation which would make heroes out of people who have signed the donor card, and this plan would save literally thousands of lives per year.

Answer 1

In ethical medical decision making, there must always be NOT ONLY the avoidance of secondary issues, but there must be the avoidance of the APPEARANCE of secondary issues. The possible perceptions generated by a method of decision making needs to be taken into account. To do otherwise is irresponsible.

The POSSIBILITY that there could be a perception by the public that financial gain could be associated with family members donating organs would make people afraid that IF they were registered as organ donors, their lives could be put at risk for the financial gain of family members.

The organ sharing network would not tolerate the possibility that people would have this secondary level of confusion when considering organ donation as something they might want to do after they die.

Organ donation needs to be done for ONLY the right reasons. Not the right reasons AND some other reasons.

Even if the number of cadaveric organs was substantially increased, it would by no means guarantee that every transplant candidate would get organs when they need them. Living related organ donation will not solve that problem either, but it will make a substantial dent in the problem.

The fact is, people die. Organ failure such as kidney or liver failure is a cause of death. In the past, it killed everyone that suffered from it. Now, we can save some lucky people when we can get them organs that are surgically implanted, and we can force the human body not to reject the organ by supressing the immune system. This is a pretty severe thing to do!

If you want to make a dent in the problem, start by enlisting more people into primary care who can make early identification of such problems as hypertension and diabetes which tends to destroy kidneys. Much of this organ damage is preventable.

Answer 2

People already kill family members for small insurance policies. What would stop bad people from killing family members if they thought they might win millions? Just a thought.

Answer 3

Your question is illegal.