“opt-in” system to an “opt-out” one.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nAt present, people in Germany have to carry a donor card, register as an organ donor, or otherwise inform healthcare professionals of their willingness to donate in a legally binding manner before death. If they do not, and they are deemed potentially viable donors, sometimes their next of kin are asked to decide on their behalf \u2014\u00a0a traumatic and difficult decision in the midst of a bereavement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With donor rates consistently failing to meet demand, some medical professionals have long advocated a system where instead of declaring your willingness to donate, you are assumed to be a potential donor unless you specifically say you are not a willing participant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A draft law has been put forward in the Bundestag \u2014 not as a government initiative but as a cross party conscience vote, typically for causes with only a narrow chance of success but which politicians nevertheless wish to put in the spotlight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In this case, however, 245 lawmakers have already signed the motion, in a chamber with 630 politicians. If the bill could\u00a0gather some more support during the parliamentary process, it might have a chance of progressing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Parliamentary debate on the bill is scheduled after lawmakers return from the summer break.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Around 8,000 people are currently on donor waiting lists in Germany.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"08\/14\/2026August 14, 2026Almost half of Bundestag sign up to new ‘opt-out’ organ donor model More than 200 lawmakers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-813844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}