GOP leaders clash over organ donation bill
FRANKFORT — A measure that would update Kentucky's organ donation process prompted sharp debate between two high-ranking Senate Republicans during a Wednesday committee hearing.
Senate President Pro Tem Katie Stine, R-Southgate, objected to the bill, which was sponsored by Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville. The proposal, Senate Bill 4, would implement a host of changes to make Kentucky's organ donation laws match the same procedures used in 37 other states.
Among other things, the bill lays out a process by which the closest family group to a brain-dead person can decide whether to donate organs if that person hadn't signed up as a donor. The measure eventually passed the Senate Health and Welfare Committee 6-2 but not before a rare, and at times tense, clash between Senate GOP leaders.
Bluegrass PoliticsStine, one of the committee members, said she couldn't support the bill and offered an amendment to narrow the bill so only persons who had explicitly stated they wish to be donors could have their organs used — a move that clearly rankled Williams.
"Quite frankly, I don't really see allowing people to amend bills who aren't going to even support the bill after the amendment," he said. "I consider this an unfriendly amendment."
Williams and Stine then went back and forth. At one point Williams tried to respond to one of Stine's points, which she rebuffed by appealing to the committee's chairman, Sen. Julie Denton, R-Louisville, with "May I finish my remarks?"
"My greatest concern about this bill is that it infringes on private property rights that go to the most intimate and personal choices that a person can make," Stine said. "This bill moves us away from gifting and toward taking."
She then read a message sent to her by a concerned citizen who said the bill would give someone "less control over his own body than over his own estate."
As she read it, Sen. Joey Pendleton, D-Hopkinsville, shook his head and laughed quietly. Williams smiled at Pendleton, who later spoke in support of Williams' bill.
Williams said Stine was making "an illogical argument" because the current law allows family members to make the call about whether a loved one's organs could be donated if that person hadn't signed up as a donor.
"This sets up a protocol so that everyone will know what the protocol is," Williams said of the bill.
Stine's amendment failed in a voice vote.
After the bill passed, Williams said Stine's amendment was "a cunning attempt" to change the current law to narrow the rules for who could be organ donors.
"She has a strong conviction in what she believes on this particular bill and that's her prerogative," Williams said. "I harbor no ill will toward her, we just don't agree about this bill."
He then predicted it would win support on the Senate floor.
Williams said he worked with the Catholic Conference of Kentucky to iron out issues its leaders had with previous versions of the bill. One of those changes, made in an amendment Wednesday, tightened the definition of "tissue" to exclude the taking of sperm or eggs to create embryos.
"We are neutral on SB 4 as it goes to the Senate floor, and we are grateful the issues the Catholic Conference raised have been addressed in the amendments that have been included," said Robert J. Castagna, executive director of the Kentucky Catholic Conference. "It's important to note ... that the Catholic Church supports, as a tremendous gift of life, the donation of organs."
Among the other provisions in the bill, it would allow grandparents who are caretakers of a child to make decisions about organ donations, said Paul E. O'Flynn, executive director of the Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates.
One advocate for the bill, Sandy Hickey, of Louisville, attended the committee hearing wearing a button with the face of her son, Paul, who was killed in a car accident in 1999.
Paul Hickey, who lived in Lexington but was traveling in North Carolina when he was killed at age 26, hadn't signed his driver's license as a donor but had told his mother while they were watching the television show ER that he would want to be one.
After the accident, Paul saved the lives of five people, Hickey said, with his liver, pancreas, two kidneys and a heart, which "is still beating today in a minister in North Carolina."
"We've done surveys and the number one reason families say 'no' is that they do not know what their loved one wanted," she said, adding that a registry of would-be donors has recently been established, which also will help families. "I've never met a donor family who has regretted a donation."
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