After reading this article, I think I’d like to see something like this happen in all 50 states. I’m already an organ donor to begin with, so I certainly wouldn’t mind saving the $23 it costs to get my license renewed. I think Alabama has a pretty decent program to encourage organ donation, but there can always be more.
Thoughts?
I’m in the midst of typing up bills for Model General Assembly, and one of our schools submitted a similar bill (a tax break of $250 if you are an organ donor). I think it’s fantastic.
Oh, that’s awesome!
A Georgia 5-yr license costs $20; being an organ donor knocks it down to I think $8.
I’d like to see more incentives to donate organs, but I wonder what kind of impact fee reductions would have on the operation of the terrible machine of the driver license services. I don’t know how much of their revenue comes from the fees either here or in Vermont. If Vermont charges $10/yr for a license, I suspect that they depend on that fee more than Georgia does.
Personally I think everyone should be an organ donor by default when they get a license. If you’re going to need your corneas to see Jesus or whatever then you check a box and not be an organ donor. But I also think that we should stop using ridiculous hermetically sealed coffins to make land unusable one body-sized rectangle at a time. We have too much respect for the remains of the dead. Just toss the bodies in the ground or grind them up into fertilizer or soylent green or do anything other than the expensive waste we have now.
But waiving the fees is a good idea too.
I agree. It creeps me out to think about all the chemicals and whatnot that are used in the embalming process. I read an article recently about a movement towards “green” funerals. No chemicals and they’re buried in biodegradable coffins and whatnot. It’s also a heck of a lot cheaper. Oh, and there’s cremation, too, I suppose.
Cremation seems ok, as long as no one keeps the ashes around afterwards. That just seems creepy.
I actually learned something from reading the Sandman comic series regarding death: burial by air. The idea is that since places like Tibet don’t have access to water, a lot of fuel for cremation, and the ground is kind of rocky and hard, they dispose of the corpse through a surprisingly respectful ceremony of feeding the body to the birds. I wish we could do that here.
I really like that idea. I think the Alabama Organ Center does a pretty good job educating the public about organ donation (and what you need to become one) but an incentive never hurt.
Here’s the thing (and I’m sure you may know but a lot of people don’t):
Just b/c you are/want to be an organ donor doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be able to become one upon death. You basically have to die “a certain way” or be able to be put on life support (say, if you were in a tragic accident and were all but dead) so they could keep your body temperature at a certain level while they harvest the organs. I knew quite a bit about this in grad school, but many of the facts are a little fuzzy at the moment.
The reality above is actually really frustrating and makes the case for needing the largest pool possible from which to potentially pull organs.
Yeah, I knew about all that, but I’m sure that a lot of people don’t. And I agree that the best way to get around that is to have a larger pool, so that the probability of harvesting organs increases.