ACTION ITEM -- Join the NCBC in the Fight for Informed Consent and Protection of Organ Donors

Right on the heels of the Official Commentary given by NCBC Director of Public Policy, Dr. Marie Hilliard, concerning new living-donor transplant policies that: "Violate informed consent, donor and recipient safety, as well as human physical integrity." 

Dr. Marie Hilliard

Dr. Hilliard and the NCBC ask that you help us take action on this issue:

The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), the federally authorized body to develop public policy on safe organ donation and transplantation, has issued a request for public comment on their proposal entitled Policy to Implement the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network's Oversight of Vascularized Composite Allografts (VCAs).

As we know, the Catholic Church supports the voluntary charity of organ donation, as a gift of life. However, this proposal would allow living donors to donate hands and feet and facial tissue. The public comment of The National Catholic Bioethics Center is attached. The protections for the safety of the donor and recipient, true informed consent, and bodily integrity will be violated by this policy. Please have your voice heard by December 5, 2014, by e-mailing OPTN at publiccomment@unos.org, asking that this proposal be rejected, citing that you:

• “Urge an entire rejection of this policy and a redrafting to address the blatant violations of informed consent, donor and recipient safety, and human physical integrity, as well as the prevention of bodily mutilation to the living donor. No living donor should be included in VCA donation policies.”

Thank you for helping to inform the regulators of public policy on the importance of such protections for the human person.

-- And thank you to Dr. Hilliard for her hard work on these issues!