Should all Canadians be automatically considered organ donors?

CTV NEWS CA | Angela Mulholland

Photo: Canadian Matthew Ayuen is seen in hospital after receiving a life-saving liver transplant from his father. With hundreds of Canadians dying every year while waiting for new organs, some say the solution is to bring in a system where everyone is automatically considered a would-be donor unless they explicitly say they don't want to be.

With dozens of Canadians dying every year while sitting on organ transplant wait lists, and so few signing up to be donors, some say the solution is to flip the system so that everyone is automatically considered a would-be donor unless they explicitly say they don't want to be.

Such a system, called a "presumed consent model," is already in use in more than 20 countries in Europe, where organ donation rates are consistently much higher than in Canada.

If Canada made that shift too, say advocates, the country could boost its donation rates, which is one of lowest in the developed world. Only 13 out of every million Canadians becomes an organ donor, compared with 20 per million in the U.S., and more than 31 per million in Spain, which has a presumed consent system. Read more: http://m.ctv.ca/topstories/20120525/presumed-consent-organ-donation-120525.html