Are you a donor?
 

I'd like to see how the members of this forum stand when it comes to donating your organs when you die. Hence the poll. Feel free to explain your reasoning.

I myself am a donor. I have no more use for my organs and it would be a waste not to donate organs which, in my case, have not been damaged by smoking, drinking or drug use.

Yes I am. My parts are your parts.

I still think we should move in the direction of cultivatng organs from stem cells, making the struggle of obtaining usable organs a thing of the past.

I might consider being a donor in the future, but right now... I feel kind of defensive about any of my organs at the moment. I guess it's a kind of spiritual thing as well. A lot of people want their body to be 'whole' when buried.

Stem cell research can really help a lot of people.

I am. What do I care.

NO I NEED MY ORGANS. THEY'RE MINE.

The way I look at things, my entire body has been given to me 'on loan' for a short period of time. I enjoy it while I can; how can I complain once my time is up and someone else needs me for parts?

I haven't got a card, nor am I on an register right now. But on a hospital bed I will make my wishes clear, and I know my next of kin would have done so even as a child: it's open season, boys, harvest me!

I think I'm on the organ donor register. I signed up to it when I got my provisional driving license, but I haven't had any confirmation. I'd better look into that.

I would be a blood donor, but the National Blood Service is homophobic. Even if I weren't banned for life I would boycott them until they change their policies.

Homophobic? Can I ask in what way?

I don't know how they do it here in Britain, but in America you signed up to be an organ donor at the Department of Motor Vehicles. They put it on your license and all it is is a quick question, "You wanna be a donor, hon?"

That's because the blood of gays is actually an extremely caustic acid.

Yeah, that's a means of signing up, as I say. But you can also register without it ever involving your driving license.

If you are a man who has had sex with a man (MSM) you are banned for life. The National Blood Service claims that this is because MSMs have the highest rate of HIV infection: and one third of all people newly diagnosed as being HIV+ are indeed MSMs (although that means the two thirds aren’t MSMs).

All blood donated is screened, but they say, quite rightly, that no screening can be 100% effective, especially in cases where infection occured less than six months prior. It has been determined that "allowing MSMs who practice safe sex to donate blood would result in only one HIV-positive donation slipping through every 5,769 years". So yeah. The Nation Blood Service is endangering thousands of people's lives by having extremely low stocks of blood and using stale blood for transfusions just to protect that one, potential person. Whose life would probably still be extended by the transfusion by a number of years.

I'll probly sign up as organ donor at some point... but I dunno.. the whole thing scares me. Im for organ donating and I think it only makes sense. But I'm also posessive.. and I also think about my family... The fact that they can't see you for a while after your death because they need the organs or something like that.

I am a donor, and I am happy to be one. I don't like the thought of being sliced open and mutilated, but I'll be dead, so what will it matter?

The blood services of most of the world's nations are Anglophobic (except the UK, obviously).

I want my organs to go to science, not humans. That way they will help more people.

That this is still possible in this day and age... I'd start killing people.

How is the NBS Homophobic? Do they think that gay blood is made of acid or something?

It is. Deoxyribonucleic acid.
Not exactly made of it, but where is the joke then?

The thing that's holding me back here.. Is more my respect to everyone that I love... I dunno how they'd react to know that someone was cutting up my dead body.

Maybe I should ask. I dunno.

It's not about being gay, it's about whether you have had sex with other men.

How so?

Thank you. xxx

You should definitely talk it over with your family. Consider that donated organs can often be preferentially given to a member of your family (because of the decreased likelihood of tissue rejection). The chance is slim, bt you could very well save a member of your family.

People who refuse to save another human beings life out of some religious belief should ask themselves why on Earth they would follow such a religion in the first place.

Love thy neighbour, just keep a distance and NEVER give anybody something of yours that they're in desperate need of, but you don't even need any more.

Edit: Wow this is an active thread.

I would like to become an organ doner, I wouldn't say i'm actively planning to be one. It's just a little obscure possiblity for my future.

Good point.

Isn't this concept of not allowing homosexuals to donate blood just a throwback to the archaic idea that "AIDS is a gay disease?"

That doesn't mean it's not homophobic, though. It's still unfair discrimination against MSMs (and women who have had sex with MSMs) because they aren't allowed to donate blood even if they have safe sex. Meanwhile, men who have sex with prostitutes and anyone taking drugs intraveinously can stroll in and they won't be questioned about it.

There is probably a great discrepancy between the aforementioned third of newly diagnosed HIV+ people being MSM, and what percentage of HIV+ blood donated is actually from MSMs who lie to donate.

The way I see it, the body is merely a vessel for the person. Once they're dead, they're gone. The body is an empty shell. I think there's sort of a tradition growing in part of my family of getting cremated. I intend to as well. I actually thought about writing into my will that I'd like my ashes to be mixed into fertilizer. I'm not sure how legal this would be though.

As Alcar said at some point before, organ donors should be the ones at the top of the donor list.

I agree, I'm just a stickler for accuracy.

I'm still waiting for the rules to change so that your organs can be donated unless you're on an exemption register.

I'm sorry but I will not become one. Sincerely I want to be buried with my body... intact.

I know it's incredibly silly, but i have a totally uncontrolable fear of my body beaing burned.

Come on... you'll never know it.

I'm also sure you don't want worms coursing their way through your already half-decomposed flesh, right? Or do embalming chemicals hold that off?

Not for long. Though worms are not an issue, given that you are enclosed in a wooden box.

Politicians are pushing for rules like that all over the world I believe and for some reason people don't think this is a good idea :fuzconf:. If you don't want to be a donor you fill out a form, no questions asked. How hard can it be...

In one sense, it's biased towards people who have sex with men. In another way, it's protecting people. Without stereotyping anyone, I'd assume that there wouldn't be a large number of non-straight people who would be signing up to be a blood donor. With all due respect, the number of straight people still donating probably means that it doesn't change a major amount of blood produced in the long-term.

It's a shame that we can't drag those emos to the blood donor places so that when they 'blood-let', they can give their healthy blood to someone who needs it! (Okay, wishful thinking perhaps).

I'm all for stem cell research. As long as it doesn't turn us all into mutant freaks like in I Am Legend / 28 Days Later / Random Zombie film.

The reason people don't want an "opt-in" scheme is that a lot of people like being in control of their own body, without having to worry about making sure it stays in one piece. There are also the adverse risks which could possibly involve someone dying in an unusual circumstance, only to be revealed later that some mafia boss had scouted him as being the perfect organ donor or something crazy like that... I guess I'm indifferent to it. But I think as you get older, you're more likely to sign up.

It’s protecting one person every five millennia, by denying them a life saving transfusion. Admittedly blood donations probably won’t increase too dramatically if the National Blood Service starts being sensible, but it’ll still give hundreds more people better life prospects. Is that not worth fighting for?

It's easy. If I die, whatever is usuable can be used. Otherwise toss me on a fire and do what you want with the ashes. It's not like I'll give a damn. When I'm on my deathbed, I'll dramatically clutch the neck of my son's shirt, and gasp out, "Use my body to help others!" then my eyes will widen, I will fall back on the bed, gasp for breath, and die.


Then the doctors will descend with their coolers, ice, and scalpels.

Ha! You would be so lucky. They won't find your body for months.

It's not as if I'll be particularly attached to it after leaving this physical plane of existance. If I had to choose between forcing my family to spend money on an elaborate burial or on a night on the town, get drunk, and tell stories about me to the waiter/stripper/bartender in a slur, I would choose the later.


Besides, there won't be much to harvest if I die at an old age anyway. I expect I'll die from organ shutdown caused from old age, but if I happen to go out spectacularly, I guess nothing major would be left. That what could be salvageable would be better off feeding a don's pit bull than a particularly ambitious worm that managed to find a crack in my pine box.

I'd bet on spectacularly. And soon.

Auto-erotic asphyxiation, I hope. Please give me some dignity in death.