Mora's gift is a model for all

Each year, approximately 8,000 people in the United States die waiting for an organ transplant, about 400 of them in New York.

Thanks to slain New York Police Department Officer Wilbert Mora, 27, the wait ended this week for five people, the recipients of his heart, pancreas, liver and kidneys. Mora died Tuesday after, police say, he was shot while responding to a domestic disturbance in Harlem between Lashawn McNeil, 47, and McNeil’s mother. Another officer who responded, Jason Rivera, died earlier, as did Lashawn McNeil, shot by a third officer.

The incident is spurring crucial conversations — about guns, mental health, domestic violence and the dangers police officers face.

But there is so much need for donated organs, and so little justification for the shortage, particularly in New York, that Mora’s generous gifts shouldn’t be overshadowed. If the officer’s example spurs enough donor enrollment, and convinces enough people to respect the wishes of enrolled loved ones, the national waiting list for organs, which includes about 120,000 people, could disappear in a decade.

Polls show more than 90% of New Yorkers support organ donation, yet only about 40% are enrolled to donate upon their deaths, ranking us 50th among the 50 states. Nationally, the enrollment rate is 58%.

And New York’s percentages reflect improvement: In 2015, 22% of New Yorkers were enrolled as donors. Changes in 2017 that allow enrollment through the state insurance marketplace and let 16- and 17-year-olds register as donors when they seek a driver’s license or permit helped, but there is still much to do, and no justification for failing to.

Every major religion in the United States supports organ donation.

And the surgeries are effective, with five-year survival rates of 80% for kidney transplants, 75% for livers, and 55% for lungs. They’re also liberating. The 80% of organ recipients who receive kidneys are usually done with frequent and time-consuming dialysis that is a significant expense for the federal government (all Americans with kidney failure qualify for Medicare), and they can expect dramatic improvements in health and quality of life.

To the argument that a potential donor’s health could improve, doctors say no one declared brain dead has ever recovered. That’s important to communicate, because even when registered donors are in horrible accidents with no chance of recovery, family members frequently resist their loved one’s intention to donate their organs.

Family members crippled by emotion should understand that their loved one intended to spare other families preventable grief. In Mora’s case, his family went beyond that. The officer was not enrolled to donate, so the family was asked whether he’d have wanted to give, which is usual. The answer was a resounding "yes."

Mora’s last act in life served and protected five people at a level of heroism almost beyond comprehension.

Yet we all could match that last act, easily, without a scrap of cost or sacrifice.