Paul
Viktor Podolay
Organ
Donation
German Bundestag, January 16, 2020, Plenarprotokoll
19/140, p. 174147
[Paul Viktor
Podolay is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from Bavaria. He is a cardiologist. The Widerspruchlösung is an implied consent law
pertaining to organ donation introduced by Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) and
recently rejected by the Bundestag.]
Right
honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
In
this legislative period, we have already once decided on the theme of organ
donation. The organ donation law took effect on April 1, 2019, with the aim of
significantly increasing the number of organ donations. Yet it does not
interest Herr Spahn whether the donation numbers were thereby increased, just
as little as whether the introduction of a duty to vaccinate hinders the
recurrence of measles in Germany. He will not wait for the results of this law
and wants to introduce the Widersprichlösung
[lit., contradiction solution; implied consent or opt-out]. The initiators
thereby guarantee a very much higher number of organ donations.
It
generally does not interest Herr Spahn that both of the major churches have
considerable legal, ethical and spiritual doubts about this draft law from a ministry
led by the CDU. Thus far has come the once Christian party. As for the SPD, I
am not surprised.
Scientific
studies cast doubt on a causal relation between the Widerspruchlösung and an increased number of organ receipts. They
do support that the increased numbers in other countries arise primarily from
an improved medical infrastructure and from changed criteria for declaration of
death, as for example, in Spain. I urgently caution against such proceedings,
since the state would thereby intrude deeply into the core areas of human
existence and values which man retains throughout dying and death.
The
decision concerning organ donation is therefore a very personal decision over
one’s own death. One who is brain dead is at most a dying man, but not a
corpse. What actually kills him is the taking of the organ. Yet a donation
cannot be compelled for an act of high moral value. There exists no moral duty
to posthumously donate one’s organs. On that basis, there can thus be no legal
obligation.
Autonomy over one’s own body and personal data is becoming greatly proscribed in Germany. Without explicit consent, a doctor may not administer an injection, – that we have heard of today – no advertiser may send a newsletter without the subscription of the recipient. No means no, yes is actually yes – except generally for the organ donation, according to the CDU man Jens Spahn and the SPD man Karl Lauterbach. Then, suddenly, a silence becomes a yes – a legal innovation of our judicial system and which makes no exception even for a 16 year old child – a madness. It is an ethical abyss at which the state claims to be able to have at its disposal the bodies of its citizens, and these to quasi-expropriate.
The
socialism does not stop even at the death bed. Who dies shall, if you please,
still be useful to the collective. I personally experienced this socialistic
manipulation when previously I was resettled from socialist Czechoslovakia in
1982 and my children and grandchildren remained separated. And now this
socialistic thinking is again presented to me by a formerly conservative CDU.
It is really too much! That re-confirms my correct decision to have left the
CDU and entered the one middle-class [bürgerlichen],
conservative and free party, the AfD.
Daniela Ludwig (CDU/CSU): You still do not know at
all what it is about! That is so besides the point! Unbelievable!
Fundamental
to a functioning organ donation system however is public trust in the
transplant system. Only a transparent organization conforming to the constitution
as demanded by the AfD can do that. No foundations or associations can do that.
That is the right way.
The
state-socialistic pressure does not lead to more donations. I presume the
opposite and appeal to you: Give a clear refusal to the Widerspruchlösung. Let us instead in common increase the number of
voluntary donations by means of better education campaigns. For me, it would be
yet more important to reduce the number of necessary organ donations by means
of more prevention. Let us not in the future make spare parts people, otherwise
we will be threatened with a commercialization of the body. That is the
absolutely false way in medicine.
Many
thanks for your attention.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
