Detroit columnist says injured motorcyclists shouldn’t be given medical treatment
Here we go again.
Columnist Brian Dickerson, in yesterday’s edition of the Detroit Free Press, is the latest to call for motorcyclists to be de-facto organ donors. What’s worse, he suggests that injured motorcyclists not be given medical treatment at all.
In writing about the pending repeal of Michigan’s mandatory helmet law, Dickerson says, “If only lawmakers had thought to add a requirement that all helmet-less cyclists agree to donate their organs. And why not require donorcyclists to sign papers declining extraordinary lifesaving measures, so that deserving organ recipients aren't kept waiting unnecessarily?”
Dickerson doesn’t stop there. He lumps motorcyclists in with “champions of the right to die,” including shameless and insulting references to Jack Kevorkian and Terri Schiavo.
We’ve seen this sort of hysterical, uninformed opinion before, of course. Last September, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg characterized riders as organ donors in a column headlined "Hop on a motorcycle, fill out your donor card” -- and your e-mails to Mr. Steinberg prompted him to admit in a later column that he wrote without knowing the facts. Earlier, the AMA joined motorcyclists nationwide in defeating actual legislative proposals in New Mexico and California that would’ve required motorcyclists to be organ donors.
But by suggesting that injured motorcyclists be left to die, Dickerson has set an all-time low -- and the AMA has told him so. If you’d like to let him know how you feel, you can reach him at [email protected].
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