I always discuss organ donation when discussing altruism, and this stupid thing about ambulance drivers or doctors letting you die so they can take your organs always comes up. I sneered dramatically at such an "urban legend" the first time it came up in class. (I can be very persuasively dramatic.) Then a few years ago, there was some expose on TV that actually showed some nutty ambulance driver who was in cahoots with an organ harvesting ring. Well, my sneering took a back seat to the "I saw a show on TV..." for a few years. But now I'm comfortably back to sneering at how ridiculous and unlikely this scenario is. Many of the organ donor and ambulance websites actually insert information in their FAQ's that every effort will be made to save the person's life, whether or not he/she has signed an organ donor card.---
Barring the unbelievably extraordinarily unlikely circumstance that you'll get some criminal ambulance driver (I warned you that I can be very dramatic), I assure students that letting them die unnecessarily just isn't in the cards.
As a matter of fact, I now print up the donor cards from the site I mentioned (I forgot to put in that info in my earlier post) and hand them out to the students, urging them to sign them and have any two witnesses sign them. I figure if I get just one donor, it's worth it.
Here's the site again, in case anybody missed it:
http://www.organdonor.gov/signup1.html
Beth Benoit
University System of New Hampshire
>At one point, however, a couple of the students expressed their concerns about becoming organ donors because they suspected that in the event of an accident where they might be on the verge of dying doctors might hasten their death if they knew they were organ donors. I tried to assure them that such a scenario was unlikely, but I doubt that I was able to convince anyone.
(snip)
Miguel Roig
You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
