Organ transplantation provides a life-saving opportunity for those who have no other options. Men, women, and children of all ages, all ethnicities, and all walks of life have had organ transplants. The first successful transplant was performed between identical twins in Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1954. Since the beginning of national data collection in 1988, more than 560,000 transplants have been performed in the U.S. and success rates of recipients have continued to increase in number of years lived post-transplant, with many surviving 25 years and more. Unfortunately, organ transplantation cannot be made available to all who need it because there are not enough donors to meet the ever-increasing need for organ transplantation. …show more content…
So are the even more recent attempts to reframe and expand the number of bodies available for donation by implementing DCD (donation after cardiac death) in cases where total brain infarction does not occur, but the hope of recovery to consciousness and a life worth living is
(close to) zero. Giving away one’s organs when one does not need them any more (when one is dead, or, perhaps rather,
“dead enough”) is increasingly framed by states as a gift one cannot refuse to give, provided that one has been properly informed about what the decision means to those in need of an organ. Framed in this manner, the refusal to donate becomes viewed as irrational. What rational person would want to keep something that he or she does not need when others are in desperate need of that very thing? As a consequence, all citizens’ willingness to give the “gift of life” of organ donation can be presumed. Organs are too precious to be wasted because people are irrational or egoistic, or simply because they do not want to think about their own death before they pass away.

This is the message sent worldwide by the metaphor of the “gift of