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LEONA BOEY
THERE’S a saying that if you save someone’s life, you become responsible for that person forever.
It’s a great responsibility but, then, saving someone’s life creates a special bond between you and the other person.
Or does it?
The recent introduction of financial reimbursements for organ donors will profoundly change the relationship between donors and recipients. The argument is that financial compensation will encourage more people to donate their organs. But will it? And for what reasons?
I asked myself what I would do as a potential donor and as a recipient.
As a potential donor, I can think of two reasons why I would go through with donating an organ: personal relationships and money.
If a family member was in a critical condition and I was the only one who could provide a matching organ, then I hope that I would have the courage to donate.
But it certainly would not be an easy decision. After all, I need every one of my organs too. I still have young children to bring up and every surgical procedure carries a risk.
The other reason to donate would be money. If my family was in dire financial straits, what else could motivate me to give up my organs to a perfect stranger?
There are some people who see nothing wrong with exchanging organs for economic gain. But I would hate to see my organs as commodities to be sold off to the highest bidder.
On the other hand, if I were a potential organ recipient, how would I feel about a stranger giving up his or her organs for me?
Many have argued that anyone facing pain and death would be glad to get an organ. But I hesitate to think of saving myself at the expense of someone else. Death comes to us all, whether we like it or not.
It would be worse if the donor came from an impoverished country. Rather than making such a “donation” justifiable, it would be an indictment of the economic state of affairs that forces some human beings to sell parts of themselves to others.
Are our organs separable from ourselves as persons?
I don’t think so.
In a recent case, the mother of a young man who died in a motorcycle accident met, for the first time, the girl who had received her son’s kidney years ago.
The mother was emotional at the meeting. Even after many years, it was as if her son had lived on through the girl.
Her son’s kidney was more than a piece of flesh – it was a gift of life.
A gift of a piece of me to someone who needs it would be, I believe, a gift that carries with it a lasting bond.
And gifts, by definition, are meant to be free.
myp@sph.com.sg
The writer is a freelance writer and editor who lives in an HDB estate in the north of Singapore. She has two young children.
From myPaper, Home, My News
Monday, 06-April-2009
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