By the time you read this, there’s a pretty good chance the New York State Legislature will have adjourned.
The end-of-session season is right good fun for reporters because despite spending about 62 days in regular session this year, it’s always right up against the end of this schedule that anything at all ever gets done. Our legislature is not unlike a lethargic teenager who waits until the last minute to crack “Grapes of Wrath” and has to stay up all night with a pot of coffee on.
That’s not entirely fair, though, because in New York our lawmakers take their job title pretty seriously and spend a lot of time passing dozens of items. Most of these don’t matter in the least to most New Yorkers — did you know, for example, that it was just last year sweet corn was named the state’s official state vegetable? And just so the onion lobby doesn’t feel bad, our leaders also designated Aug. 21 as Onion Appreciation Day. Really.
(Fun story: down in Texas, a state legislator by the name of Tom Moore managed to spearhead a resolution honoring serial killer Albert DeSalvo — the Boston Strangler — to make a point about researching what you’re voting on. It passed unanimously before Moore withdrew it).
So mixed in with gay marriage, cigarette taxes and wrangling union contracts are dozens of little laws and resolutions like the “roadway excavation quality assurance act,” many of which will have little real-world impact at all but are real nice thoughts.
Somewhere in the middle of all this is a bill that as of this writing hasn’t made it to a vote: Lauren’s Law, an effort to encourage organ donation. We were surprised to learn New York comes in dead last among states when it comes to the number of registered organ donors per capita: just 19 percent (the nationwide average is 43 percent).
Some would say this is on account of New Yorkers themselves, who are not generally perceived as paragons of empathy. We’d like to think it’s because folks just don’t think about it one way or another — our public awareness campaigns as of late are more focused on getting people to stop killing themselves with sugar and smoke and less focused on what to do after that moment has come to pass.
Clearly, Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, D-New York, thinks that way too, because he’s sponsoring Lauren’s Law (No. A10039B, if you’re looking for a rollicking good summer read), which would put a box on the driver’s license applications reading “Would you like to be added to the Donate Life registry?” Check “yes” or “skip this question.”
The thing is, the drivers license application already has an organ donor section right at the top. We’d argue time spent changing the forms to smoother language could well be better used to educate the public on the benefits of organ donation.
So, a few pieces of “did you know” from the New York Organ Donor Network: someone dies every 13 hours in the state of New York waiting for an organ transplant; more than 114,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for an organ transplant right now; every year, more than one million people receive a transplant of some kind (tissue, organ, eyes, etc.).
So next time you’re renewing your drivers license, put some thought into filling out that box at the top. Or, visit donatelifeny.org for details on other ways you can be added to the donation registry and get ahead of lawmakers in making a difference.
