Should you be able to launch a Facebook campaign for a new kidney or a YouTube appeal for a replacement liver?
In a new report, the Canadian Society of Transplantation answers with a tentative 'yes' fairness. While the group concedes public appeals for organs could include ethical issues like privacy, consent, and allocation of organs, it finds the practice "ethically and legally acceptable".
Sarah Taylor, who chronicled her husband's wait for a double lung transplant with a Facebook page called "Lungs for Keith to Breathe" has some reservations.
"As it relates to liver and kidney donations I think it's an amazing idea," Taylor tells NEWSTALK 1010's Moore in the Morning. "I think the only place that it gets tricky is you've got these inequities in life anyway, you've got people who are good looking and wealthy and well-connected. Those same people are going to have an edge against maybe the uneducated or maybe someone who's never tried social media."
Taylor turned online to find a set of lungs for husband Keith in 2013 because the pool of donors was so small. She thinks the web campaign along with supporting interviews with news outlets helped raise awareness about organ donation.
The man Keith ultimately got his lungs from saw the couple on television three days before his death.
"I think it did help raise awareness," Taylor says. "I know that a lot of people ended up becoming organ donors because of Keith's story. And for me that was the most important part. Because I didn't have the option to say to someone 'can you just hand me your lungs, please?'"
Learn more about how to be an organ donor by clicking HERE.