Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Fight for your kidney

Just imagine if you were in desperate need of an organ. You would have to fight with other people that needed that organ, and if you couldn't convince people that you were deserving than you wouldn't get the organ and die. We did a simulation like this in class. We were each assigned a patient in need of an organ and we had to fight our point to try to survive. I was assigned a person who had donated their kidney to his or her father as a teenager, and now is on the verge of dying. That is all the information that I was given, and I had to argue that I was deserving of this kidney. I wrote a short letter that was my basis for my argument.

Dear Policymaker,
As a teenage my father was dying and in desperate need of a kidney. We were able to find one that matched his blood type, unfortunately the kidney was mine. Only needing one kidney to survive I was more than willing to give up a kidney to save the one I loved. Now I have been diagnosed with kidney disease. I am needing a kidney to survive. Please allow me the kidney so I can live out the rest of my life.

I didn't receive the kidney because the person that decided who lived or who died said that we didn't have control over that and chose straws out of a hat. He didn't draw my name.

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