A Cause Without Controversy

Last week I lamented that the noble causes of the world tend to be bogged down in complications and controversy, and that I was unwilling to get involved. I now must confess that I jumped the gun on that. While there are many, many complex issues that I don’t want to touch, there are a few causes out there for which I do feel comfortable with typing my full unabashed support, with no qualms about who might be offended.

The first issue I thought of was sex trafficking. My sister’s father-in-law’s daughter (would that make her my sister-in-law?) actively combats sex trafficking, but she does that in the Philippines.  I’m pretty sure that it isn’t a problem here and that none of the twelve people who read this blog are involved, so my harangue would be irrelevant but just in case: If you are involved in the sex trafficking business then SHAME ON YOU. Death by ruptured spleen is too good for you. In lieu of said trafficking, I have to fall to my next worthy and non-controversial cause: organ donation.

Contributing to medical causes can be a pain. Not as much pain as that poor kid suffering from MS mind you, but still a pain. Let them guilt you into sacrificing your five dollar footlong (and your address, you fool) for one day and you are plagued with a growling stomach for an afternoon and donation request junk mail for a lifetime and for what? Is five bucks seriously going to make a dent on the breast cancer front? Is five hundred? Five thousand? Cancer research can spend five thousand dollars in less time than it takes to eat that footlong. On the other hand, the returns with organ donation are amazing; you can save as many as eight lives and improve up to 50 for the sweet, sweet cost of zero dollars. On your part. The hospital staff has to get paid to harvest your guts, transport, and install them in someone else, but other people foot that bill so your family doesn’t have to worry about a thing. As for you, you’re dead, you have bigger concerns or none at all, depending.

The question isn’t so much of why you would want to be an organ donor as why would you not? In the sorrowful, regrettable event of your untimely demise, you will not be using those parts. If you do not donate they will literally rot. Are you afraid that the E.R. docs won’t work as hard to save your life if they know you are a donor? The E.R. is not responsible for anything donor related (thank your lucky stars for that). All they do is notify the people that are responsible once they have some viable parts. How about pain concerns? Do you think there’s a chance that you will still be alive when they start plucking your innards from your warm, bleeding corpse? I love Edgar Allen Poe too, but be realistic here; this is the 21^st century. We pretty much know whether someone is mostly dead or all dead.

Are you afraid that you won’t be able to have an open casket? First off, what kind of narcissist thinks that everyone wants one last look at his hauntingly cadaverous face? Second off, donation doesn’t alter the funeral plans. They dress you up like some macabre Barbie, replace the bones with metal rods and don’t take any skin off your face. Your eyes are sewn shut so no one can tell that your corneas are gone, so as far as dear aunt Milly is concerned you look perfectly normal, for a dead person anyway.

Are you under 18 and think this disqualifies you? Get your parents to sign off on it, it’ll make them proud to know that even if you cause a horrible traffic accident and die, you can give the guy you T-boned some of your viscera. Are you old, and think that no one will possibly want your crusty innards? Why don’t you be a donor anyway and let the folks with decades of medical training and practice make that call?

Some people claim that organs only go to the rich and/or famous. Allow me to congratulate those individuals for successfully dwelling in a magical, paranoid fantasy land parallel to the real one. I can think of about four different watchdog organizations off the top of my head that would be all over UNOS like plaid on a bad tie if that were the case but even if it were how cool would it be for Bruce Willis to have your kidney? That is quite literally the closest a person could ever be to a celebrity. He shook your hand once? Brilliant. Part of me lives inside him. Boom. You just became the coolest person at the afterlife party. At least the one your were invited to, anyway.

The last and final reason I can think of is the religion complaint, which I can understand, but I vehemently disagree. Christianity and Islam both believe in the resurrection of the dead, and wouldn’t it be confusing if you got raised but your guts were in someone else’s body? What zany hijinks! However, if you think that God has the power to raise the people who have been buried and rotted down into icky, icky goo before drying up into dust, but not the peeps who drowned in the ocean and whose bodies were nibbled away by fish, or the people who have been burned and their ashes blown away in the wind, or the people who thoughtfully checked “organ donor” on their driver’s licenses, you believe in a weak God. Seriously, you can do better. Besides that, most major religions check off on it. If it is that much of a concern to you go ahead and ask your priest/imam/Xenu, and they’ll give you the scoop.

Don’t be a selfish stiff. Be an organ donor.