A New York state proposal aims to enroll everyone as an organ donor, unless they opt out. Instead of giving permission to donate organs by checking a box on a driver's license, people would have to indicate that they don't want to be organ donors.
In addition, next of kin would no longer be able to challenge the decision of their dead relatives to donate their organs.
The notion of such a "presumed consent" measure is sparking a contentious debate among lawmakers, advocates and folks all over the web.
Those opposed to the measure say it could force people to become donors against their will or lead to concerns that doctors aren't doing enough to save patients, the Associated Press reports.
The lawmaker who proposed the measure says the only reason his daughter is alive is because she was able to get two kidney transplants. But too often, people suffer and die because waiting lists far exceed available organs. In New York, just 13 percent of residents are organ donors.
Roughly 150,000 New Yorkers die each year, but less than 1 percent, or only 1,500 people, are likely to possess organs healthy enough for transplantation, says Sally Satal, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in this debate with other scholars and advocates in the NYT.
What do you think? Are proposals like this one a good way to push people to be organ donors? Or does it go too far?