Lower House votes to ease transplant law

The Lower House passed a bill Thursday that will make it easier to obtain organs for transplants from brain-dead people.

The bill to revise the Law on Organ Transplantation eliminates the current age limit of 15 years on donors and will allow for an organ transplant if family members agree, even if the donor did not specify in writing that he or she wanted their organs used if they became brain-dead.

The bill now goes before the Upper House. Many members of Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), which along with other opposition parties has a majority in the chamber, are wary about relaxing the conditions for organ transplants. Some members are also considering submitting their own bill to revise the Law on Organ Transplantation.

For this reason, the bill passed by the Lower House may not necessarily become law.

Four different bills were prepared to revise the organ transplant law, but since the first one put up for a vote was approved by a majority of those voting, the other three bills were scrapped.

The three other bills had set different conditions for organ transplants.

One proposal would have lowered the donor age to 12, while another would have kept the age limit at 15, with stricter criteria on brain death. The fourth proposal would have eliminated the age limit, but required written consent from those aged 15 or older as well as approval from family members for those under the age of 15.

A total of 430 Lower House members cast votes on the bill. The tally was 263 in favor and 167 opposed.

Members of the Japanese Communist Party abstained from the vote on grounds it was too early to hold a vote on such an important issue.

Minshuto and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party allowed their members to vote according to their conscience as the matter reflected their personal views on life and death.

Thursday's vote was the first on a revision to the organ transplant law since it was passed in 1997.

The bill that passed the Lower House was supported by doctors working on transplants as well as groups for patients seeking transplants.

However, because the bill defines death as occurring when an individual is diagnosed as brain-dead, there were questions about whether a majority of those voting would go along with the bill.

The Asahi Shimbun conducted a survey of all Diet members in May about the organ transplant law revision bill and 70 percent did not respond. Even among those who did respond, about 20 percent said they were still trying to decide the merits of the bills.

The proposed legislation was first submitted to the Diet in 2006 by a group of LDP lawmakers, including Taro Nakayama, who has fought to raise the rate of organ transplants in Japan.

Until now, there have only been about 10 cases of organ transplants annually from brain-dead people in this country. Among reasons for the low figure is the poor uptake of donor cards confirming an individual's willingness to donate organs.

The current law requires written consent from the donor beforehand, so even if an individual is diagnosed as being brain-dead there often is nothing that family members or medical institutions can do.

Thursday's bill is a major step forward for those seeking organ transplants.

However, some Lower House members said there was not sufficient social consensus on whether death should be defined as occurring when a person is found to be brain-dead.

Similar concerns exist among Upper House members. For this reason, there is no guarantee that the bill passed Thursday will become law in its current form.

Despite the concerns of many lawmakers, analysts said the bill likely passed the Lower House because of a feeling among many members that if it was not passed now, the momentum for a revision of the organ transplant law would be lost.

Meanwhile, some government officials expressed concern that Upper House deliberations on the bill could affect the timing of a snap election.

"If the Lower House is dissolved (for a snap election), it means the bill will have to be scrapped," said LDP Secretary-General Hiroyuki Hosoda. "It is not desirable to have to start from scratch."

An executive of the LDP's Upper House caucus urged caution on an early vote on the bill in the upper chamber.

Prime Minister Taro Aso told reporters that deliberations on the bill would not affect his decision to dissolve the Lower House.(IHT/Asahi: June 19,2009)