Arjun Malhotra Roll no: 1011508 3rd semester BBA A

Persuasive Speech
Organ Donation is a must:Ladies and gentlemen, today I am here to share with you my views on organ donation, in the hope that you will take them on board and give someone the ultimate gift after you have left this earth the gift of life. Organ donation is the donation of biological tissue or an organ of the human body, from a living or dead person to a living recipient in need of a transplantation. Transplantable organs and tissues are removed in a surgical procedure following a determination, based on the donor's medical and social history, of which are suitable for transplantation. Such procedures are termed allotransplantations, to distinguish them from xenotransplantation, the transfer of animal organs into human bodies. There are a few types of organ donation. The first type of organ or tissue donation is from donors who are alive. These donors go through a selective process ensuring blood type matches, physical health and compatibility before donating their organs or tissue. Donation after cardiac or brain death occurs when an individual exists only on life support, and doctors declare no hope for recovery. The family decides to remove life support according to a living will or the individual's wishes. The medical team keeps the donor on support only to sustain the health of their organs, and then they remove all the viable organs. There is also full-body donation. This is when the donor gives their body to a medical school of their choosing for medical purposes. Many times, individuals determine that their first choice is organ donation. If no organs are transplantable, they give their body for medical teaching purposes. There are many misconceptions regarding organ donations. Many people believe that they would be too old or even too young when they die to donate their organs. Many even believe that it would be to too expensive for their families or that once a hospital finds out that they are an organ donor, the doctor that had been so desperately been trying to save your life, would stop. However, none of these beliefs are in fact true. Upon death your organs are assessed for their condition, which often has little to do with your age. The cost of an organ transplant is the responsibility of the recipients insurance, not the deceased or their family. But most importantly, the team of doctors at the hospital working to save someones life are completely separate from doctors that would perform the organ and or tissue transplants. Someone who is interested in becoming a donor can even specify which organs they would like to donate and can even specify whether or not they want to be a tissue donor as well.

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In 1994, the Government of India passed the Transplantation of Human Organs Act that legalized the concept of brain death and, for the first time, facilitated organ procurement from heart beating, brain dead donors. However, this concept has not caught on well in India for want of public education and awareness. This in turn is perpetuating the commercial sale of human organs due to the widening gap between the demand and supply. Thousands of lives are lost in India annually from heart and liver failure since transplantation of unpaired organs like heart, liver and pancreas is either difficult or impossible from living donors. This is only possible on a large scale if these organs are available from cadaver donors.

Most organs for transplantation come from cadavers, but as these have failed to meet the growing need for organs, attention has turned to organs from living donors. Organ donation by living donors presents a unique ethical dilemma, in that physicians must risk the life of a healthy person to save or improve the life of a patient. Transplantation surgeons have therefore been cautious in tapping this source. As surgical techniques and outcomes have improved, however, this practice has slowly expanded. Today, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), almost half of all kidney donors in the United States are living. In 2004, living organ donors also provided a lobe of the liver in approximately 320 cases and a lobe of a lung in approximately 15 cases. Three categories of donation by living persons can be distinguished: directed donation to a loved one or friend; nondirected donation, in which the donor gives an organ to the general pool to be transplanted into the recipient at the top of the waiting list; and directed donation to a stranger, whereby donors choose to give to a specific person with whom they have no prior emotional connection. Each type of donation prompts distinct ethical concerns. With directed donation to loved ones or friends, worries arise about the intense pressure that can be put on people to donate, leading those who are reluctant to do so to feel coerced. In these cases, transplantation programs are typically willing to identify a plausible medical excuse, so that the person can bow out gracefully. Equally important, however, are situations in which people feel compelled to donate regardless of the consequences to themselves. Nondirected donation raises different ethical concerns. The radical altruism that motivates a person to make a potentially life-threatening sacrifice for a stranger calls for careful scrutiny. Directed donation to a stranger raises similar ethical questions with a few additional wrinkles. This type of donation usually occurs when a patient advertises for an organ publicly, on television or billboards or over the Internet. Such advertising is not illegal, but it has been strongly discouraged by the transplantation community.

Ladies and gentlemen, at this moment in the US there are 79,000 U.S patients on the transplant waiting list. Three thousand a month are added to this total. Not a lot you may say when the population is close to three hundred million, but now add twenty to thirty family and friends to each patient, and the number increases vastly. Page | 2

Every day between 16 and 17 people die whilst waiting for a transplant. Again you may say not a lot but in the average mans lifetime the death toll is 1,980,160 almost two million people. Ladies and gentlemen you can help. By donating your vital organs after you have passed away you can save lives. For the more sentimental of you, of the 79,000 patients waiting for a transplant, over 10 per cent of these are children under 18 years of age. So, how can you help? All you have to do is get in touch with your local doctor and he will tell you all you need to know. You fill out one form, and receive a card; it really is that easy. Then, once you have passed away in many years to come, your organs will be removed and will give somebody else the chance of life. After a transplant of a vital organ, the average survival rate is over 80%. A massive increase from the 20% that would live without the surgery. Some people worry. Will they be left open after the surgery as they are already dead, or will they still be able to have an open casket funeral? The answers to these are simple. You will be treated with the up most respect in the surgery and the same procedures apply to the body as a living body. And yes, you will be able to have an open casket funeral if you wish to. Ladies and gentlemen the gift of life is the most amazing gift anybody can give. How I see things, and what made me become a donor, is that after I am gone I will have no use for my organs. So why should I deprive someone else from using them.

Don't think of organ donations as giving up part of yourself to keep a total stranger alive. It's really a total stranger giving up almost all of themselves to keep part of you alive.- Sigmund Freud.

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