Speech

We as a race strive to collect as many resources as possible. The Spanish readily committed genocide for gold. The richest men in history gathered their wealth from the processing and sale of high demand resources. Even today, we are no different. While we sit in this room, there are recycling centers devoted to salvaging every ounce of aluminum from an old can, or every bit of silicon from a hard drive no longer in use. We must ask ourselves, though, what do these materials give us? Plastic? Fuel? Jewelry? Computers? Surely we cannot live without these things, for that we need them. They are as necessary as the air we breath, the water we drink. Our hearts would stop and we would fall to the ground if we didn’t find enough of the resources we depend on.

This isn’t true. If the gold industry came to a halt, we’d all have fewer things made of gold, but we’d live. The same goes even for gas or coal. Even if our power went out or our cars stopped getting fuel, we’d continue to live.

But what if our last kidney stopped working, or our liver quit? Would we be as fortunate? We covet and conserve these resources we would like to own or think are helpful, but throw away those things that actually make us tick. How many cans are recycled to ensure we still have cans? If you need a can of soda, there’s a store full of them to go and buy from. What if I need a kidney? Is there a kidney aisle in that store?Despite the fact that everyone can donate not just one, but twice the amount of kidneys that I would need when they die, I would go on a waiting list behind scores of kidneyless people and there’s a good chance I’d die before I placed high enough on the list to get help. Those in need might be women, or children, people with full lives and plans they won’t get to fulfill. Sure, we can’t just take any kidney and stick it in there and have a healthy person again, but if we had even a fraction of the people who die giving organs, we could live in a world where the waiting lists don’t last months and more people get help.

What if we took one person Maybe that person was going to find a great career, or find love. He might have lived to be an old man with grandchildren, or the woman who cured the common cold. There is no resource greater than life, and even if choosing to be an organ donor is very different than pushing a recycle bin out to the street, the reward you could give to one or even multiple otherwise dead human beings outpaces any inconvenience or personal fears we would have.

This brings the question, if we can take life out of dead people and put it in dying people, why are we not all donating what we have when we’re done using it? The truth is, there are a lot of scary things about being a donor. Some think that by being a donor, you are no longer a patient but a commodity to doctors, and if you are able to give life they will not work as hard to keep you alive. This is the silliest of all the misconceptions, for that it is based on the weakest logic, and in reality doctors don’t even check to see if you’re a donor until you are officially declared dead. Some fear that they might be declared dead while still alive due to the rush of trying to transplant an organ. In reality, donors are given more tests to ensure they are dead.

Some also feel that in the case of open casket funerals, organ donation would not be an option for obvious reasons. However, for skin transplants (which are used to treat burn victims, etc.) tissue is taken from the back, and after bone transplants metal rods are put in place to keep the body looking normal. In any case of donations, no one would be able to tell you are missing anything. Meanwhile, a person somewhere will get one or more of those parts and hopefully live with them for years to come.

Organs are also removed at no cost to the donor’s family, and the procedure is done quickly and most likely would not interfere with funeral arrangements. No one is too old to donate and few medical conditions disqualify donors.

The idea of being “harvested” may allow our imaginations to run wild, but in reality it is a quick, clean procedure that would probably allow one if not many to survive. In fact, mathematically 50 people could receive treatments from one deceased human being. So this brings the question, what’s stopping you? What’s stopping anyone from providing a second chance to someone after you’re life comes to a close? It’s recycling the world’s most valuable resource and saving a life, so why not?