A study done at the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine and Feinstein Institute for Medical Research showed that obesity is contributing to a “shortage of organs for donation.”  From Inquisitor.com

In an analysis of 104 potential kidney donors, researchers at the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine and Feinstein Institute for Medical Research found that 23 percent of the patients were classified as morbidly obese.  A person who is classified as morbidly obese is not able to donate an organ.

What to do to get more organs?  Get people to lose weight:

Obese people are largely considered bad candidates for organ transplantation due to the strain the surgery and healing will put on their bodies.  At times, Obese donors are put on diet and behavior management programs and doctors chart their progress monthly to determine if their eligibility has changed.   Only 3% of those who try to lose the weight and become donors succeed.

Sachdeva offered the following recommendation for obese participants:

    “We need to target that 30 percent who are really motivated to lose weight. What can we do differently?  We could put them in a more rigorous weight loss program, have closer follow-up, offer motivational support groups or even in some participants – if their BMI permits – consider bariatric surgery.”

So lose weight (even undergo bariatric surgery) so that you can become an organ donor?

I don’t have an issue with organ donation per se, but I do take issue with the increasing tendency to see our fellow humans, not as persons in their own right, but as harvestable biological material.

Do I think it is any coincidence that some lawmakers are suggesting commuting sentences for prisoners who consent to be live organ donors?  Or that the AMA wants to look at financial incentives for organ donation?  Or that it is being proposed that your organ donor sticker on your driver’s license supersede any other advanced medical directive or instructions you may have in place?

Once we began looking at some human lives as harvestable biological material, namely human embryos and those in a persistive vegetative state, then we all start looking like meat for the harvest as well.

Watch out.  There are some people want you to lose weight not just so that you can be healthy, but so that your organs can be available for someone else as well.

Rebecca Taylor blogs at Mary Meets Dolly