Justin K. Michigan

Organ Donations from Prisoners

Organs for transplant are scarce, so why is America making them even scarcer?

Dear Future President,

Congratulations on winning the presidency and I hope that you can bring great change to our country which is still facing many problems. One the problems I would like to bring to your attention is the fact that incarcerated people in the United States are not allowed to donate their organs. Countless lives are being lost because of the lack of organs available for transplant and nothing is being done to fix this.

More than 121,000 people in the United States are currently on the waiting list for a lifesaving organ transplant. And a lot more people are added to that waiting list everyday. On average, 21 people die every day from the lack of available organs for transplant. Organs in the United States are scarce even though surveys suggest that the United States population supports donations. In 2005 that poll showed that among U.S. citizens 95% of people support or strongly support organ donations but only 40% of eligible people are registered. But those 40% only make up a small portion of the country’s total population.

I believe that people who are in prison or have been arrested before should be able to donate organs. It is a win-win situation because the incarcerated person would have the choice to exercise their right to save a life and society benefits because it reduces the scarcity of life saving organs. To fix this problem I believe that you could try to get a bill passed to change this law.

Sincerely,

Justin King

Carman-Ainsworth High School

Carman-Ainsworth High School

This group consist of students in the course of English 12 for Ms. Mathews. We will be posting on issues of social injustice and making a change for the better.

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