Rabbi Danny Rich, Senior Rabbi of Liberal Judaism
4 September 2018

The National Health Service (NHS) Blood & Transfusion Service has a national Organ Donation Week – which started on Monday and ends just as Rosh Hashanah begins.

The purpose of the campaign is to “raise awareness of the important need for families to talk about organ donation to help save lives”. And it works… some 34,000 people joined the NHS Organ Donor list during the week long initiative in 2017.

But I hope the British Government will soon go a step further and introduce an ‘opt out’ policy so that people no longer need to join this list in order to be an organ donor.

I have long been an advocate of such an ‘opt out’ system whereby it is assumed that, unless an individual has made known his or her wishes not to donate organs, consent will be deemed to have been given.

The rationale is simply this. The NHS Blood & Transfusion Service estimates that, whilst 4,000 lives are saved by donation each year, some 1,000 of the 10,000 people on the list die during the wait for a suitable organ.

There is some evidence that the ‘opt out’ proposal may not increase the number of donors. But even if that proves true we will still see many more families having important conversations (whilst their members are still healthy) about life and death, the value and quality of life, and the possibilities of fulfilling the mitzvah of pikuach nefesh: the saving of a life.

Judaism affirms the value of life but is realistic about the inevitability of death and it seems to be that early contemplation on, and conversation about, it is a valuable societal change.

Each one of us is able to give so many gifts in our lives; what better than to give a gift of life at our deaths.

Find out more about organ donation and Organ Donation Week here.