When it comes to organ donation, you have two choices: You're either a donor, or you're not. But that's changing.

There's a new choice some people are considering — to donate, but only to fellow donors.

It's through a network called LifeSharers. But there are some people who question this right to choose.

Eric Nichols of South Bend is a firefighter and a member of the naval reserves. He was working at a hospital in Germany last year when he heard about LifeSharers.

“When I was deployed to Landstuhl, where all the down range troops come from, we actually had one of the injured warriors come through and he handed me a card and asked that it be photocopied and added into his medical file at Landstuhl, and it was for the LifeSharers network,” Nichols told WSBT News.

LifeSharers is a not-for-profit national network of organ donors. There are more than 10,000 members. Anyone can join at any age, in any health condition, for free, with one stipulation — members agree to donate their organs upon death.

Eric is now a member.

“Over 50 percent of the people who received an organ are not organ donors themselves,” explained Nichols. “That was just unbelievable to me that somebody would be prepared to accept an organ, but had at no point in their life decided they would give the same gift to somebody else.”

LifeSharers creator Dave Undis says that's not fair. That's why he started the network in 2002.

“No one else is doing what we're doing,” Undis said in a phone interview with WSBT News. “No one else is helping people donate their organs to other organ donors.”

Undis says if a LifeSharers member dies, their organ is offered first to another LifeSharers member.

But that doesn't sit well with the Indiana Organ Procurement Organization (IOPO), also part of the National Organ Network.

“I wish in some ways it was as simple as they want to make it sound,” said Sam Davis of IOPO, in a phone interview.

It believes LifeSharers is really just trying to get more people to donate — which is good, with the ongoing organ shortage — but questions its methods.

“What they're after is that, we have a donor and the family says to us, ‘We are members of LifeSharers and we want to designate this gift to go to a specific class of people,’” explained Davis.

IOPO feels LifeSharers is putting another restriction on the already complex process of donation, and says under federal law, people can't be excluded by class.

“For example, I can't say, ‘Don't give that organ to a Jew, don't give it to a black, don't give it to a Muslim, don't give it to a minority, don't give it to anybody from Kentucky,’” Davis said.

LifeSharers says that's not what it's doing. It's giving directed donations, but to other donors. Just like a firefighter's family might request their loved one's organs go to a fellow firefighter in need. That directed donation is allowed.

Both groups agree LifeSharers is bringing attention to the need for more organ donors.

“If an organ becomes available from a LifeSharers member and there's no match to another LifeSharers member who seeks an organ, then it goes to the general public, because the last thing we want is for our organs to go to waste,” said Undis.

That’s another reason Eric feels the same.

“I've been a firefighter and I've been through the military system and you learn that people are going to die and the best thing that you can do is give of yourself,” he said.

We have expressed consent in this country — you aren't a donor unless you state otherwise. Some want to change that.

The state of Delaware just introduced legislation for presumed consent — that unless you say, ‘No, I don't want to be a donor,’ you will be upon death. Many European countries already do that.

It's a hard decision, but we know there are more than 800 people in Indiana alone waiting for transplants.

For more information on LifeSharers and the Indiana Organ Procurement Organization, click the links in the Related Content box. LifeSharers can also be reached at 1-888-ORGAN88, or 1-888-674-2688.