Opt-Out Organ Donation Without Presumptions By Dr. Ben Saunders

In the article “Opt-out organ donation without presumptions”, published by Dr. Ben Saunders, he is trying to promotes / defend “opt-out organ donation system”, where people who did not give their consents are automatically, considered as giving their consent to donate their organs when they passes away. This is rather completely opposite to the current organ donation system, Opt-in system, which we are more familiar with, where only people who have given their consents are the group of people who are donating their organ to the (needs). And people who did not give their consent, their organs will not be touched. As the article continues, it describes how much the current society is lacking in available organ donation versus the number of

Saunders challenges the negative moral perception of opt-out organ donation system by challenging the Kantian moral value, where is it difficult for one to realize whether he or she had done right thing if it is harder or more costly to you. He gives some twisted examples of making the donation system difficult for the donors to go through series of testing and have them pay fees to make the donating much more a difficult task to fit the Kant’s description of Moral worth action. By offering this ridiculous example, he is trying to make the point that when it comes down to organ donation, where it is to save lives of the others in needs, there is no reason to distinguish the moral value the one will get by donating his or her organ either under opt-in system, “difficult system”, or Opt-out system, “Easier System”. He also makes his point that people who decides to donate their organ, when it is easy for them to decide, assuming that they know that they are in terminal condition in death bed or what not, it doesn’t show moral worthy of the person as well.

He Also argues the wrongful use of the word “presumed consent” which is currently viewed of his favored “Opt-out” system, where people didn’t have any saying in their consent, are automatically considered as agreeing to donate their organs. This causes a bit of moral issue because according the Dr. Saunders the public is more use to the idea of donate organs only with properly passed on consent by signing consent forms. Therefore, his proposed idea of using Opt-out system, presumed consent, there is a bit of