Good idea for organ donations

As the medical community routinely warns, there's never enough organ donors to satisfy the demand. A new campaign in Israel might help solve that problem, if broadly adopted.

Israel has begun giving preference for transplants to those who sign a donor card. And the preference extends to their families.

The effort acknowledges the comparatively small percentage of Israelis -- only 10 percent of adults -- who sign up to be organ donors. That compares unfavorably to the 30 percent average of other Western nations.

The Israeli experiment is being scrutinized by the international medical community for possible adoption elsewhere. An official for the World Health Organization said the idea has introduced a "community spirit" to organ donations.

"The bottom line here is doing to others as you would like others to do to you and that is where the community has a role," Luc Noel, WHO coordinator of clinical procedures, told The Associated Press.

Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, declared the measure ethically sound, describing it as "reciprocal altruism."

The provision should encourage a new way of thinking about organ donation. Recognizing how it might benefit your own family should encourage a broader perspective of how it could equally benefit others.