WHEN this newspaper launched its campaign for a rethink on organ donation laws a year ago, it was with just one aim in mind: to save lives by ensuring that more heart, kidney, liver and other transplants took place in Scotland.
It is therefore a matter of considerable regret that, as we report today, scores of patients who desperately needed new organs were denied them because of problems with existing rules. The Scottish Transplant Group has discovered that even though org
ans were available from people who had registered as donors, their relatives overruled their wishes after they died.
This is a hugely sensitive area in which there are no clear rights and wrongs. Everyone must have sympathy with a distraught relative who cannot bear the thought of a loved one's body being harvested, even if it was something they wanted and it would save the lives of others. It is a position blessed few of us will ever face and we judge those who do find themselves in such dilemmas at our peril.
This is precisely why the law on organ donation needs to be revisited. Enshrining the right of everyone to authorise the use of their organs after their death has clearly not been enough. So today we repeat out call to governments in Edinburgh and London to consider a move to "presumed consent", in which people have to opt-out if they do not want their body parts to be used after their deaths. It is a big step, but it would secure the right of individuals to deny consent while saving the lives of up to 500 Scots a year.
The full article contains 278 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
