Snopes.com responds to the idiotic urban legend that, if you’re an organ donor, doctors won’t do everything they can to save your life.
Here are a couple examples of the donation myth:
I heard that having the pink organ donor ticket on your driver license will cause the Paramedics to allow you to die in order to harvest your organs. The rumor claims that due to the long list of people on the organ waiting list, the Paramedics are instructed to allow organ donors to die.
Barbara Mikkelson points out the obvious:
While the rumor would appear to confirm the belief that physicians involved in harvesting organs will happily sacrifice one patient in their efforts to secure parts for others, such belief overlooks one particular facet of this conjecture: Doctors who fail to provide their best medical care to their patients can and will be sued. As professional healers, they are held to a higher legal “standard of care” than is the average person and thus aren’t afforded the luxury in life or death situations of not attempting to do all in their power to save those whose lives hang in the balance. Additionally, in those instances where patients died, doctors who did decide to scale back care could well be charged with homicide.
The people who believe this nonsense are the same people who believe chain emails and slanderous rumors. A minute of research is all it would take to clear these lies up, but that’s too much work. It’s just easier to be gullible… ugh.
I’ve said it before: If you have the ability to donate your organs (or body) after you die, do it. You’re being selfish if you choose otherwise.
[tags]atheist, atheism, organ donation, urban legends[/tags]
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