Time is ticking on the ability for advocates for all kinds of causes to get action on bills important to them before the sun sets on the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s 2015-16 legislative session.
House and Senate leaders are not expected to take up significant floor business after the Nov. 8 general election, so that leaves roughly four weeks of scheduled session days.
First out of the block to plead their case in the abbreviated pre-election session Monday were advocates for a upgrades to Pennsylvania’s 22-year-old law governing organ donations.
Pennsylvania was considered at the forefront on the issue in the early 1990s, noted Cheri Rinehart, a former chair of the Pennsylvania Organ Donor Advisory Committee. Now, Rinehart and others say, the state needs a re-write to get in line with what 49 other states are doing.
The overarching intent of the current bills is to increase the numbers of organs available for harvest, thereby cutting into often life-or-death waiting lists faced by patients in need.
And the need for organs is great. Learn more here.