[ad_1]
I am liberal. The autonomy of the man is one of the highest possessions of all. Therefore, when the state intervenes in people's lives, particular caution must always be exercised. As a physician, I am convinced that only patients should decide for themselves what happens to their body. Would a new organ donation regulation change that?
On Wednesday, the Bundestag debated whether Germany should introduce the solution of contradiction. According to this principle, every German will henceforth be considered as a donor of organs if he has not objected to it during his lifetime. Due to the chronic shortage of donor organs in Germany for years, the Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, has ruled in favor of this decision.
Critics see in the contradictory solution an interference in the right of self-authorization on one's own body. But anyone who represents this attitude supports – deliberately or not – a system of ignorance. This attitude ensures that many people with a clear conscience will not spend their lives caring for organ donation – and will never decide if they want to donate.
An unbearable status quo
This in turn maintains a paradoxical and intolerable status quo: over 80% of Germans think that organ donation is a good thing and a little under 70 can imagine giving themselves. At the same time, however, more than 10,000 patients from this country are waiting for an organ. One of the reasons: most Germans do not hold their state of readinessother important reasons can be found here).
Thoughts of death can be uncomfortable or even frightening. But the price of the repression is high: for example, sick people wait a year after a new liver and suffer from fatigue, weakening of muscles and nausea. A friend whose liver was destroyed by heavy metals has lived everything. In the end, she fell into a coma – a few hours before she died, she received a donor liver and survived.
What is not clear to many is that the solution of contradiction does not force people to donate organs. But that forces them to decide what is urgent. This can be considered a flagrant intervention of the state, but in the context of the glaring donor shortage, this is justified.
The new regulations would also allow all those who have reservations. The reasons for donating organs are many and understandable: some religiously want some of their bodies to remain as intact as possible after their deaths, others do not like the idea that Dead people can hang for hours at machines and open their bodies to take organs out. All this should necessarily be tolerable for a society. In addition, we should talk about it. As the history of medicine teaches us that it is a problem if it is no longer allowed.
The solution of contradiction does not attack the right to self-determination
When states interfere too deeply in everyone's right to self-determination, the human body becomes an object through which violence can be exerted. Often, when the regimes refused the self-determination of the person on his own body, crimes followed. From eugenics with its forced sterilization in the Nazi era to syphilis attempts against low-income blacks in the United States. These lasted until the 1970s.
But the solution of contradiction is not comparable to such interventions. Because it does not attack the right to self-determination of one's own body. With a simple signature, every citizen can rule out being a donor of organs. They will simply have to save in a pbadport, a living will or a newly developed and previously unavailable file that they do not want to give.
The solution of contradiction is not the only way to break the ignorance. For now, however, it is the most obvious option that has long been proven in neighboring countries. Because it is true, the Germans should finally make a decision, whether for or against the donation of organs. And friends, families, and co-workers started talking about their position. Thus, society could solve the problem of organ donation as a community.
Source link
