Do you know of this Jesica teenager that I've been hearing about on the news? The one that received two heart and lung transplants, and died recently? It turns out she's an illegal alien. In the scheme of things, that's not exactly that bad. Her parents, though, have decided not to donate her organs. That sucks.
Note that I have compassion for any parents that lose their children. That's a terrible thing. But what reason could they have to make this decision? I'll be glad if these awful people are deported.
Here's the story: Yesica's (that's her real name) parents paid a smuggler to bring her into the country illegally because they knew that there was better medical care in the US than in Mexico. So she gets here, and three years later she's on the table ready for her transplant. But the doctors botch it, giving her the wrong blood type organs -- A grievous mistake on their part.
So she gets put on the list again, and expedited, and within two weeks, she's got another heart and lung. But by the time everything is said and done, she's brain-dead.
And when they ask the parents about her organ donor availability, they say "no". These people who have taken advantage of the system by breaking immigration law to get here say "no".
I do think it should be a personal decision to donate your organs, but I also think that if you benefit from the system, you should be required to give something back. Regardless of their immigration status or the botch job the doctors did, they should be donating Jesica's organs.
The fact that they made such effort to get her here so she could take advantage of the organ donor system is what makes me particularly angry. About 17 people on the need list die every day waiting for organs that don't come. She got two sets. Two! Hardly anybody gets two, regardless of the outcome.
In every surgery, you have a chance of catastrophe, and you have to deal with the consequences. Jesica got a second chance. She and her parents stole the life from another patient that needed a heart or lung, and they probably died. Twice! And then they had the audacity not to offer her organs to the many people that might have used them.
I'm sorry. To simplify: It's like jumping the border from a land with no convenience stores, running directly to the nearest convenience store, using all of the "take-a-penny" money to buy gum, and offering none of it to anyone on your way back out.
It's invasion and it's theft, and although I feel sorry that the doctors fouled things up as much as is possible, these parents were very wrong in their decision.
