So I was digging around for the legality of putting restrictions on how your organs are used once the donation process has begun. I came across this thread:
It seems the facts provided and the general consensus is that you don’t get much control over who get’s what.
My question then is, does it bother you knowing that the person your organs may be given to may have either not cared enough to offer up their organs for donation, or was flat against it?
I give blood regularly and I’m an organ donor. Now a lot of people I know are already signed up to be organ donors. Doesn’t take much work to answer ‘yes’ when they ask you that question at the DMV. But a lot of people I know refuse to give blood, not because of medical reasons, but because it scares them, or it takes too much time, or they’re afraid of the needle.
The more I think about it the more I think it would absolutely piss me off, I’d be dead, so I guess I’d be as pissed as a dead guy could get, knowing that someone who wouldn’t take the time to donate blood or sign their drivers license would get my organs. Now my exception to this would of course people that couldn’t consent on their own to giving up their organs or were not medically able to give blood or donate their organs, but there’s no excuse for everyone else.
Am I wrong to have this thought? Could I be the only one that’s selfish towards those that aren’t as selfless as me in this respect?
Well, one does hope they’d change their mind once they got my lungs or whatever. If not, perhaps my lungs will rise up against them and wreak vengeance.
ETA - look, I’m not going to be using them. People who know what they’re doing have decided on criteria for who should get them. I’m certainly not taking them with me out of pique because we might not agree.
Hey, that was my thread. And I’ve pretty much reversed my stated position there, based on an episode of “Gray’s Anatomy” a few weeks ago. I no longer feel I should have any control over who gets my organs. Let it be a gift. As jsgoddess said in that thread, getting indignant if an unworthy person gets your organs “feels small.”
Though I still hope they don’t go to a prisoner. Or if they do, and said prisoner gets out and tries to commit another crime, my kidney bursts on the spot and leaves his whole abdomen septic.
Some time ago (my search-fu is weak), there was a Doper who was not an organ donor because someone ‘unworthy’ might get his organs. IOW, someone who blew out his liver by drinking and drugging might get his liver.
We tried and tried, to no effect, to convince him of one simple, irrefutable truth:
If you donate your organs, there is some chance that someone undeserving will get some/all of them.
If you don’t donate them, there is a 100% chance that no one deserving or otherwise, will get them.
He just didn’t ‘get it’.
I don’t know whether the people who get my organs will be ‘deserving’ of them or not. OTOH, as Zsofia said, I’m not using them anyway. It’s not like they’re going for a better cause if they’re buried with me!
Just FTR, I am not a blood donor because of health reasons. My hubby is not a blood donor because he lived in England during “forbidden” years. But we are both designated organ donors, and our kids know it and are very cool with it.
Haven’t really thought about it before, my feeling is, if you’re sick enough to need my liver, you probabaly should not be donating blood.
While I’m sure my family would be happier if my organs went to a young person who then went on to join the peace core and improve the world, I also think they’d be just as proud of me no matter who’s life was saved.
I don’t care who ends up with my organs after I die. I don’t really think of it as a ‘selfless’ act because it’s just a body and I’ll be done with it at that point.
Considering you’re going to be um, dead, when your organs are harvested – I’m not sure you can really say you’re “selfless” for donating them. You won’t be needing them anymore so really – it’s no skin off your teeth to tell 'em to take what they can use.
Selfless is when you do it when you’re still alive. You’re going through some actual pain, and sometimes you’re taking a risk that the body part you’re donating to someone else is one you may end up needing for yourself later in life.
Now … that said … no, as an organ donor it doesn’t bother me. People have different reasons for not donating, and I don’t care what they are.
Chances are if someone is sick enough to NEED an organ like a kidney or a heart, they never were going to die with usable organs to harvest anyway – which may very well be the reason they never signed up to be an organ donor. (IANAD so I could be wrong, maybe some transplant patients DO leave good stuff behind when they eventually die. I’d actually be interested in knowing if that ever does happen.)
And even if your organs go to an asshole who wouldn’t donate even if he weren’t sick, that guy’s kids or friends or neighbors will see what you did and maybe donate.
And it is “selfless”, in the more literal sense - you are, you know, without self.
When the topic comes up, I mention that, yes, I am donating my organs, and I hope they strip my carcass down to the chassis like a Honda at a chop shop.
How else am I going to start my zombie army takeover of the world?
Well, I was never really going to change my mind and withdraw my name or stop giving blood in the first place. And I never really thought of the possibility that you couldn’t be selfless after death!
Guess the only thing I can hope for is that it truly goes to someone that needs it. And if it goes to someone who hadn’t though otherwise about donating anything, hopefully it convinces their friends and family just how much that decision could do for others.
And I second phouka’s analogy of them stripping my body down like a Honda. Classic!
I’m a kidney donor. The recipient (a relative) was diabetic, and he earned his place on the transplant list the old fashioned way–by eating tons of potatos and desserts and putting his blood sugar well above five hundred more or less whenever the food looked good. That part didn’t matter to me. I donated partly because I wanted his kids to see him at their graduations, but mostly for the selfish reason that there was a need and I could help.
As it turned out he did get his act together after the transplant, but the kidney is his now, not mine. It’s not my business what he does with it (He could play handball with it for all that I care.) That said, I do care about my family, and he better not screw up a perfectly good relative.
Well, I’d be a little annoyed (well, as annoyed as a brain-dead corpse with it’s guts scooped out could be—you know what I mean), but at the same time, I accept that there’s not a lot I can really do about it. I mean, it’s not like I get to set the criteria for the transplant system myself, and by the point I’d be donating, it’s not like I’d be doing anything more with my organs anyway, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.
I’m an organ donor although I don’t know which parts of me would be worth harvesting. Taken as a whole, I feel pretty much worn out. Since I am nearly 70, would it be worth the effort to part me out?
Well, your corneas are probably still good. Enabling someone to see again is worthwhile. Heck, you might even help two people see again!
By 70 your organs are not considered top shelf, however, some transplant centers will consider using older organs because, let’s face it, a usable 70 year old kidney is still better than one 30 years old but completely nonfunctional. They are also considering transplanting less than ideal organs (such as very old ones) into older recipients, or under circumstances where life expectancy is probably not going to be great even with the healthiest of organs. I guess the rationale in that case is that, even if the organ isn’t going to last as long, neither will the recipient so no harm done in the long run.
It is my understanding that someone sick enough to need an organ transplant is very unlikely to have organs healthy enough for transplantation. I also rather doubt that, after a transplant and years of immuno-suppressive drugs and their side effects, that they would have organs suitable for donation. So, unless they were a living donor prior to their organ failure I don’t see where they have the option to donate.
I don’t think you’re wrong to have the thought, but I also think the situation is unlikely to change in the near future. I hope you won’t be selfish just because someone else is, even if they annoy the crap out of you.
Maybe some people who do not donate have watched Monty Python’s: The Meaning of Life one time too many.
But seriously, smarter people than me will be deciding who gets what, and there are enough restrictions for them to consider without me adding: and don’t give it to people who buy non-recycled toilet paper, people who de-claw cats and people who do not know how to raise only one eyebrow.
Plus, I’ll be dead, and it’s not like I’ll miss my kidneys.
Even if you think you don’t have any usable parts, you still might.
I just got a letter from a second someone who can walk because I donated my husband’s ligaments and tendons. So, that makes two people who can walk, and one who can see.
I don’t care if they are nasty people or wonderful people. They have been given a gift and I have as well.
