Presumed consent isn't consent

So the Western Australian government wants us to Opt-Out of donating our organs and if we don't then we are presumed to be a registered organ donor?

The reasoning behind this new system is that the government feels that people don't register to be an organ donor because of indifference or complacency or perhaps a lack of awareness. So why are they just presuming that by not opting out of donating people are consenting to donate? Perhaps there is another solution.

In Queensland a similar system was proposed but rejected and more education on the matter was funded instead saying that "presumed consent was not likely to be effective".

The issue with presumed consent is that it is easily objected by families and loved ones. At the end of the day your loved ones will be able to communicate your  wishes with the doctor and if they had no clue that you wanted to be an organ donor then they would be fairly likely to object to you being one. Furthermore when there is an "opt-out" system in place it is highly likely that there will be less priority put on raising awareness to the necessity of organ donations and most people would be presumed to be registered to donate and therefore don't need to be informed on the importance of this. A lack of education on this could again cause confusion within families as to whether or not a person is willing to be an organ donor. However if there is more education and awareness on how to register to become an organ donor a person would be likely to discuss this with their family before they register and more people involved would be aware of their wishes.

On the flip side of this reduced education we need to think about those who do object to donating their organs, be it for religious or personal reasons. It is easy for the government to fund awareness programs for registering to donate because they know that there 1,700 Australians waiting for an organ transplant and this pushes them to encourage people to donate their organs. However there is no such push for the government to educate people on how to opt out of being an organ donor. Of course it is a great gift to give an organ but that doesn't mean that those who don't wish to do so should be forgotten. It is easy to say that those people who have a strong enough objection to donating their organs will just look into opting out but looking down the track will it really be that strongly shown how one can do this? It's highly doubtful.

There are certainly good intentions behind the "opt-out" system and with only 680,000 registered donors in Western Australia we really need to improve the numbers. Unfortunately the absence of an objection isn't consent enough to count a person as a registered donor. There are other things that need to be improved first. Plus wouldn't your family feel better about giving away your organs and saving someone's life because of you if they knew for absolute certain that it is what you wanted.