Will organ donation rise as Latinos further assimilate?

Mi madre

Perhaps it is because my brother, Christopher, and I (at third-generation) are further along the path to assimilation. But there wasn’t any hesitation when our mother died last autumn that we would permit her organs to be donated for possible transplant.

In large part, it was because she herself insisted we act in such a manner. It was one of the things she made clear to us in her final years of life, and she also had signed all the proper paperwork to indicate that this was her wish.

TO ME, IF I had thrown up some sort of fit and claimed my mother’s body was somehow being violated by the concept of organ donation, I could envision someday ascending to an after-life – only to have my mother waiting to lecture me about why I didn’t follow her wishes.

So it is from that perspective that I read a recent study, and various reports about it, that indicate the Latino population is less likely to permit organs to be donated that any other ethnic or racial group in our society.

The Texas Organ Sharing Alliance said that only 31 percent of all people they followed who donated organs during 2010 were Latino (compared to the 42 percent of all Texans who are Tejano).

The Reuters wire service did a particularly nice piece of reporting about this issue, finding many Latinos who saw this as a religious issue – as though losing a body part would make one incomplete in the “afterlife.”

THE WIRE SERVICE even found one Latina who got cut off by the bulk of her family after she gave approval for her daughter’s heart and liver to be donated after she died in an automobile accident.

I’ll admit that I have encountered people who have felt this way – who claimed that organ donation was somehow sinful. Of course, those individuals were of Polish ethnic descent – albeit, still Catholic.

Which makes me think this is an issue that will change with time, perhaps as the Catholic Church has less of an impact upon the daily routines of the lives of many Latinos. In short, as Latinos continue their path to assimilation.

What amazes me is that the Catholic church has taken official stances indicating that organ donation doesn’t do anything to deny one the chance at an afterlife outside of Hell. Unless we also want to believe that the souls of war casualties that get mutilated also are condemned to purgatory?

YET STILL, FOR some it just doesn’t register. As though they don’t realize the body will eventually rot away. Organ donation can give someone a chance at improved life.

A part of me feels like if any body part of my mother was able to benefit someone else, then a part of her lives on for awhile longer Now I don’t know what happened with her body, as she was ill for the last decade of her life. I don’t know if her organs were worth much (she herself was waiting for a kidney transplant, one that never came to be), although my brother and I were told that her corneas were likely of use to scientists doing medical research.

So if there are some Latino individuals out there who think my brother and I somehow did the wrong thing with our mother, I’ll have to tell them to stuff it. (Actually, I have a few choice Spanish obscenities for them, but decorum prevents me from repeating them here).

My mother lives on in the memories of my brother and I, regardless of what was done with her body parts. Hopefully, the day will come when my ethnic brethren will come to the same realization.

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