http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health-news/2011/09/21/archbishop-of-wales-attacks-plans-for-presumed-consent-on-organ-donation-91466-29462069/Archbishop of Wales attacks plans for presumed consent on organ donation
Madeleine Brindley
THE Archbishop of Wales has launched a fierce attack on plans to change the organ donation law, claiming it will turn “volunteers into conscripts”.
Dr Barry Morgan today said people’s organs should be donated to others “as a free gift” and not treated like assets of the state.
In making the comments, in a presidential address to the Church in Wales’ Governing Body, Dr Morgan has become the most high-profile critic of Wales’ aim to become the first part of the UK to move to a system of presumed consent.
The Welsh Government has repeatedly stated it wants to bring in legislation to introduce a so-called “soft opt-out” system, similar to that used in Belgium and Spain, to increase the number of organs available for donation.
But Dr Morgan said: “Although all this is admirable in its intention, I feel a bit uneasy about presumed consent.
“There is, in presumed consent, a subtle or perhaps not so subtle change of emphasis in the relationship between the individual and the state.
“That is, that unless we have opted out, our organs belong to the state and the state has the right to do with them as it wills.
“The implication, by default, is that the state can decide on our behalf. I think that compromises individual rights and freedoms and poses the moral question as to whether the state can make such decisions.
“Is this a legitimate power, in other words, for any state? True, the state will argue such power will only be taken after consultation with relatives but there is a presumption in favour of the state and almost the belief that our bodies are state assets and therefore at the State’s disposal.
“All this at a time when the medical profession is trying to be more open with patients in discussing the choices available to them in their treatment and getting them to make their own choices and be in control of their own lives.”
Switching to presumed consent has been heralded as the answer to the paucity of organs available for transplant – currently one person from Wales dies every 11 days while waiting for an organ transplant.
There are currently more than 280 people waiting for an organ transplant in Wales.
But despite this, figures from NHS Blood and Transplant show a record number of transplants were carried out last year – 3,740 – and the number of deceased organs available for transplant rose by 5%.
The current organ donor system relies on people registering as potential donors and telling their relatives about their wishes, as families have the final say about donation at death.
A “soft” opt-out system would assume everyone is a potential organ donor at death unless they had registered their opposition during their lifetime. But families would continue to be consulted.
Presumed consent has been credited for higher transplant rates in countries such as Spain and Belgium.
But opponents have suggested higher transplant rates can be achieved by investing in facilities and in transplant coordinators, who are able to raise the question of organ donation with families.
Dr Morgan added: “Organ donation surely ought to be a matter of gift and not of duty.
“If one takes organs without consent, on the assumption that by not opting out, a person is tacitly assenting, then this is no longer a free gift to others.
“An organ donation ought to be precisely that, a gift, an act of love and generosity. Giving organs is the most generous act of self-giving imaginable but it has to be a choice that is freely embraced, not something that the state assumes.
“Put more crudely, it can turn volunteers into conscripts.”
A Welsh Government spokesman said: “There is no question of volunteers being turned into conscripts.
“People will be given the option of opting out of donating their organs if they wish, and their families will still be consulted when a death has occurred.
“However, research shows that the Welsh public overwhelmingly backs our proposals.”