Organ Donation
 

This was an issue a while back here in Holland but I never considered asking everyone's opinion here.

What do you think about organ donation? Are you a donor? Are you planning to become a donor and what do you think about current policies?

For example the current donor policy in many countries is that you have to give permission to be a donor. However over here a while back we had a debate of turning that around and making everyone a donor by default unless that person signs a form saying he doesn't want to be a donor.

Which system would you prefer in your country and why?

I'm a donor. I don't really know the details of the system, but it definately seems like a good way to go.

Unfortunately the idea was struck down by the heavily christian influenced government who didn't think it was a moral idea.

I don't think much to the idea of everyone being made a donor by default unless they sign a form. I know it's still giving people the choice whether they want to do it or not, but for some reason I just don't like it.

Not sure whether I'd want to be a donor or not.

They can have the lot, the whole stock as far as i'm concerned.

Was a debate about the same thing a while back here, about making everyone donors by default. Maybe if you were actually dead before they started gutting you one might feel a little more inclined to it...and if I didn't have my grandfather on immunosupressants due to having a transplant liver (he's always ill and doesn't have any quality of life)
It should not be enforced in my opinion. The word is donor - to donate something. You cannot be forced to be a donor...well that wouldn't be a 'donor' anymore. Being a donor means having a choice, your choice, so an opt in rather than opt out

I think we should be donors by default. There are a lot less organs around simply because would-be-donors have not gotten around to making arrangements.

This, pretty much. Donors are very much needed and if people really don't want to donate their organs for whatever reason then filling out a simple form will make sure that doesn't happen (much like the do not resesitate forms). But in my opinion not being a donor is selfish. It's not like you are going to use those organs when you're dead. Either the worms will eat them or they will be burned. All that while you could have saved 4 or 5 lives.

It is still a choice of course, and if people do not desire to be gutted while half dead and let their body parts go up in smoke, by all means. There are both sides to each argument, and yes, the organs could save many lives by all means, especially if they really do need it (genetic heart probems, kidney failure) and also if they need it through their own fault (alcoholism, like my grandfather, that messed with the liver). However it is still morally right to give a choice, and if someone doesn't want to, then is it really right that they are presumed that they do want to? Religious reasons, moral or ethical reasons. I do not wish to have consent presumed, I wouldn't give it though that is purely because of my grandfather. I would expect that anyone with morals would understand my wish not to, just as I respect people's wish for getting on the register.
Signing yourself onto the register, that is a lovely thing to do, that is your donation after you are gone. Presumed consent, that is not donation, not giving a gift of life to someone. What would you call it after it is no longer organ donation? Do we take people's dead bodies to a butcher after death rather to a morgue?

"The needs of the many out-weigh the needs of the few."
-Jesus Yes, I know it's Spock.

People who aren't donors should consider easing into the role by donating blood first. Even though your pint is tiny drop in the bucket, it's comforting to know your fluids could be in someone else's body, helping them stay alive.

At first when I read this I thought you guys were talking about donating organs while you were alive, I wouldn't like to do that, but after I'm dead I would be fine with them taking most of my organs... maybe... also something interesting I heard about was that they are starting to genetically modify pigs organs so that they can put them in humans who need them... so by the time I die they may not even need human organ donors anymore...

If stem cell research continues going well, organ transplants won't be a problem at all.

I would donate while I'm alive. I don't understand how someone wouldn't seize the opportunity to save a life.

I would do it.. But Im still unsure.

As far as I know, they take your body for a few days to get the organs, making the family unable to 'visit' you.

i want to become an organ doner but havent got around to doing it. this probably fuels the argument that people should be made organ doners by default, seeing as i could get killed in an accident tomorrow (and not be a doner even though i meant to). but i agree with Guekko, its technically not a donation if its by default.

either way, whether you actively signed up to be an organ doner or were one by default, its all good in my opinion.

I've been a donor for years. That won't change. We were discussing this during dinner a few nights ago. What fucking irks me, is that non-donors are receiving the organs of donors.

What's the biggest excuse for non-donors? "It's against my religion."

There is no religion out there that forbids you from saving another persons life. Period.

It's disgusting, and if any sort of organ donation law is to be passed, it should be that non-donors can't have anyone elses guts. It's not fair. It's selfish.

Agreed. People who are a donor themselves should be put at the top end of the donor list for any sort of organ if they need it.

Agreed.

On a similar note, I'd like to see some sort of compulsory blood donation legislation. Similar to how jury duty is set up :p

Alcar...

I'd have thought you and me wouldn't be able to donate blood anyway?

Under the Australian Red Cross' guidelines, I'm not allowed to donate blood, but it's guidelines are maligned anyway.

Why can't you give blood?

Alcar...

And yet there are plenty of religions that forbid ending a life to save a life.

There's quite a lot of discussion within Judaism about donating organs. The general halachic viewpoint is that death is counted from respiratory failure, not from brain death. Organ donation is allowed as long as the extraction of organs is not the actual cause of death; thus, in general, most organs are allowed to be donated, but not the heart.

I don't really get how a religion can see fit to impose their definition of when a person is dead onto their followers. Surely this is evidentially a purely medical issue?

Fucking jews. Ha.

This.

You don't seem to get religion. It's not just a basic set of morality together with a bunch of prayers to suck up to god. It's a full judicial system of laws and rules and shit. It's meant to define every part of life, from birth to death. Thus, it has every right to decide when death occurs.

And, I should point out, it's not arbitrary. Extremely intelligent men have spend much time working out the fine detail. What's more, if you went back in time a decade or so, Judaism would completely ban donating. Modern scholars have spent much time and research looking in to those fine details so that they can identify when organ donation is allowable and promote it as an acceptable and respectable deed within the community.

Yeah, that hasn't sold me on the whole "it's not arbitrary" thing.

This this this.

I'm not currently a donor but I fully intend to become one once I figure out how. I actually do agree that the legal default should be donor, as I think a large number of non-donors were just people who don't care/can't be assed to go down and become one. If you don't want to donate and its important to you that you don't, you ought to make an effort to register as a non-donor.

Of course, I do understand religious obligation. Some religions don't believe in that sort of thing and its not for me to judge that (I know Jehovah's Witnesses can't accept transfusions and such, and likely can't give or receive organs either). Of course, if you're a willing non-donor it stands to reason you shouldn't be given organs either. Which is another reason to default yet and register no - now, donors and non-donors can receive organs and it would be rather cruel to deny organs to someone because they forgot to register as a donor, but if you have to actively become a non-donor, you're fully informed of the consequences.

On the other hand, though, I don't want anyone to die. Even people who want organs but won't give any.