A civilian proposal that all citizens in Denmark are automatically registered as organ donors unless they actively object goes too far. This is the opinion of several parties in the Danish Parliament who have to decide on Friday on the matter.
According to health spokesman Per Larsen, the Conservatives' parliamentary group has agreed to vote against the proposal. The party thinks it is too far-reaching. This reports the Christian Danish daily Kristeligt Dagblad.
According to Danish broadcaster DR, the Danish People's Party, the Socialist People's Party, the Unity List and the Social Democrats have also stated that they will not vote for the proposal. “It goes too far. We should be reluctant to take organs from people against their will. I believe that people should rather actively decide whether they want to be organ donors”, says Rasmus Horn Langhoff, health spokesman for the Social Democrats, to DR.
For the Liberal Party, it is a difficult ethical issue to decide on. There is disagreement among the parliamentary group's 40 members, who have therefore been set free when they have to vote on Friday, says the party's health spokesman, Martin Geertsen.
“It is a question of conscience, an ethical question. After all, our organs are our own, and therefore it is a question that goes a little beyond what we normally deal with”, he says to DR.
In addition, the Folketing (Parliament) passed a resolution two weeks ago, which forces citizens to take a position on organ donation when, for example, you need a new driving license or passport.
Majority
The parliamentary parties have to take a position on this subject on Friday. However, it does not appear that there is a majority for the citizens' proposal, which has received support from almost 54,000 Danes.
Behind the citizen proposal for automatic organ donation is Mads Sebbelov, who lost her 15-year-old daughter Josephine in 2020 while waiting for a donor's heart. She became one of the 18 Danes who died on the waiting list for a new organ just that year. Sebbelov says to be fighting this battle “so that other parents do not have to experience saying goodbye to their child on a waiting list for a new organ”. He says so to DR.
Although the number of organs has increased in recent years, while the number of dead on the waiting list has decreased, the lack of organs is still a problem, says Malene Deele, national chairman of the Kidney Association. “There are over 300 kidney patients on the waiting list, so Denmark has a great shortage of organs.”
One of the few
In the European Union, twenty member states have already introduced active opt-out for organ donation, making Denmark one of the few EU countries that have not introduced it.
It has been recently introduced in Switzerland, Wales, England, Scotland, Iceland, the Netherlands, and France. In Denmark and Germany, citizens must actively opt for organ donation. However, the experience of the 20 countries that have active opt-out does not necessarily indicate that it will provide more organ donors if all are organ donors in the first place.
“The introduction of active opt-out of organ donation does not in itself provide more organs for transplantation”, says Anders Ølsgaard. He is a project manager at the Danish Center for Organ Donation. “Many people in a register are not the same as having enough organs. It may be a contribution, but we do not know for sure.” He points out that the countries that have introduced active opt-out have both more and fewer organ donors.
Nevertheless, it is clear that Mads Sebbelov's citizens ' proposal, with the support of almost 54,000 Danes, has reached the Folketing, which only 37 out of 1,305 citizens' proposals have achieved. He does not share the concern that an amended law is useless. “There is no one who can guarantee that it will create more organs by turning the law around, but I want to guarantee that it will raise awareness and knowledge about organ donation, and that is important.”
