DENVER-
The House on Monday approved a measure that would encourage people to become organ donors by renewing a fund to promote donations.
The measure (Senate Bill 37), would also be renamed after 16-year-old Emily Keyes, who was killed by a gunman last fall at Platte Canyon High School. She decided to become an organ donor four months before the shooting. Her corneas later helped a man regain his sight.
The bill now goes back to the Senate for consideration of amendments.
Since 1998, the state has asked driver’s license applicants if they would like to donate $1 or more to the Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Fund to promote the state’s donor registry. Since then the percentage of people agreeing to become donors has risen from 33 to 60 percent.
The fund, which would expire in 2008 without the new legislation, took in $326,400 last year.
