Resolved: Just governments ought to presume consent for organ procurement from the deceased.

Secondly, I would like to provide some numbers in order to precisely identify how great the problem related to insufficient number of donors is. At the same time, I would like to point out the mortality rate for people listed (/waiting) for organ transplantation. Every day in the United States, 17 people die waiting for an organ transplant. The number of people waiting to have the explantation has more than tripled over the last ten years and now exceeds 82,000 individuals; at the same time, the number of donors has remained relatively stagnant (OPTN, 2004). In 2001, 6,439 people died while waiting for a transplant, nearly double the 3,916 candidates who died while waiting just five years earlier in 1996 (OPTN, 2004;The Lewin Group, 2000; Wright, 1998). Neither the number of listed people nor the number of patients who are dying each year is showing any sign of decrease. Instead, there is only an increasing organ shortage crisis in the United States. That can get us aware of how great the problem is. People who suffer from an advanced organ failure don"t have any chance to survive unless they undertake an organ transplantation as soon as possible. Ancient people don"t get upset if I borrow a phrase from them "Hic mors gaudet succurrere vitae" that means, for the ones who are not familiar with Latin: "That is the field of human activity where the death enjoy to rescue the life" My opponent declared that the presumed consent to donate organs didn"t have any effect on the increase of donor organ procurement. However we should take into account that the presumed content policy is a strategy adopted by several countries in order to overcome the problem of insufficient organ supply. I reply him reporting some data from a systematic review published on BMJ in 2009 - BMJ 2009;338:a3162 doi:10.1136/bmj. a3162. All five studies, which represent the experience of three countries, found an increase in organ donation rates obtained after the introduction of presumed consent legislation. In Austria there were 4.6 donors per million population per year before the introduction of the legislation. The number of donors increased dramatically after the introduction of the presumed consent legislation: 10.1 donors per million population after the first four years; We would like to report here a couple of examples: in Belgium kidney donation increased from 18.9 to 41.3 per million population per year over a three year period, and in Singapore kidney procurement increased from 4.7 to 31.3 per million population, also over a three year period. WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN ABOUT THIS TOPIC In UK, the supply of donor organs is insufficient to meet the need for transplantation and a change in legislation to promote the presumed consent has been proposed. The introduction of presumed consent legislation in other countries is thought to have led to increased donation rates. WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS The evidence suggests that presumed consent law is associated with increased organ donation rates. Other factors such as availability of potential donors, infrastructure for transplantation, investment in health care and public attitudes may all play a role, but the relative importance of these factors is unclear. Finally i would like to conclude highlighting the psychological aspect associated to the effects of the presumed organ donors. The relatives or the people close to the donor must face a difficult decision that they probably don't want to carry out. According to the law organs can be obtained from whom who didn't registry an objection. Moreover this law could relieve the relatives of the burden of making that decision at a such traumatic time. My opponent remarked that a lack of understanding rather than an agreement with the policy might have caused a person to not registry an objection. We agree but we suggest to adopt the soft Spanish law that establishes that health care professional still consult the family to obtain the permission