Are You An Organ Donor?

[Mr.Excellent]

Well, I have a spiffy orange sticker on my liscence that says “organ donor”. And it is my firm belief that post-mortem organ donation is a moral imperative. If you’re dead, you’re not using your organs, and there might be someone else who desperately needs them. Sort of a no-brainer.

Unfortunately, my parents are uncomfortable with the idea, partly because it’s against Jewish burial tradition and partly because they’re a bit squeamish. This wouldn’t matter, except that if I were to shuffle off this mortal coil, the hospital would ask my parents for permission to harvest my organs even though I have the nifty sticker. As it stands right now, they’d probably say “no”, and that would be the end of it.

To me, this is a truly horrible thing. In all likelihood, this will never be an issue for me - but heck, I’m a college student. Sometimes we die - car accidents, other accidents, whatever. And if I were to die, I damn well hope that as much good could come out of it as possible did so. The idea of rotting uselessly when the donation of my organs could save lives strikes me as a tragically stupid thing.

So, I feel an obligation to convince my parents that my wishes should prevail, should the need arise. After all, I can’t very well convince them at the time.

Their argument is, first of all, that they’re uncomfortable with the idea. My response to that is kinda brutal: Tough. I love you guys, but human life is more important than your emotional comfort. If the cost of a life-saving organ donation is that you’re a little wigged out - you’ll deal with it. Death is a lot more permanent.

They also say that, as mentioned, it is against Jewish tradition. My response: Again, tough. First of all, I’m an atheist. Second of all, your traditions are less important than human life. If organ donation has even a slight chance of letting someone live a week longer, then that is infinitely more important than following tradition.

My parents then suggest that I ask a rabbi what he thinks - no, not the ones on the red cross page that endorse organ donations, but our local Conservative rabbi. Even though, as already mentioned, I am an atheist . Damnit.

I know this post makes me sound like something of an SOB - which, admittedly, I am. But it is absolutely essential to me that my parents agree, without reservation, that in the unlikely event I were to buy it, they would honor my wishes. My wishes would save lives, theirs would cost lives.

Anyone got any ideas?

[Mr.Excellent]

*Originally posted by bri1600bv *
**I’m not an organ donor.

I’m a terrible person I guess. **

Nah - but do you mind if I take this post apart anyway? You don’t? Thanks - then I’ll just state the obvious for a bit.

**
First of all, it grosses me out, practically makes me want to throw up. But then I’m like that. I feel faint when I catch that medicinal hospital smell.**

By the time you’re an organ donor, my friend, I guarantee you the smell will NOT be bothering you. And if it’s the idea that makes you ill - again, by the time it happens you won’t be around to notice. All it takes is a couple seconds of ickyness while you check off the box on your liscense, then you tell you family and never have to think about it again.

Do you want someone to die because you lack the stomach for such a trivial effort?

**
Also, I pay alot of taxes. Alot of those taxes go to people who are irresponsible like welfare people who didn’t study in high school and wanted to party instead. Or people on medicare/medicaid who are in ill health b/c they are too fat. Now are all people on welfare or medicare/medicaid irresponsible? No. **

Down, down to the BBQ Pit, and tell them that I sent you…

Er, sorry, nevermind. But come on. First of all, the amount of taxes you’ve paid is completely irrelevant. The investment you need to make to become an organ donor is precisely zero. You check off a box, you tell your family. Saying “I don’t need to donate organs, because I paid my taxes” is not an intelligent thing to say. They’re completely unrelated.

Are you saying that lazy people don’t deserve to have their life saved, because you say so? Are you saying fat people deserve what comes to them? That’s a pretty terrible thing to say, my friend.

And, incidentally, the vast majority of your taxes goes to neither medicaid/medicare nor welfare, but little things like defense, the post office, the FDA, state department, FBI, federal programs for schools - you know, basic infrastructure that allows our nation to provide for the common welfare and interact with other nations.

**
I told him no way in hell I would donate so some loser who destroyed his own organs gets a chance to destroy one of mine too. **

Please, someone tell me I’m being whooshed.

So you’re telling me that even though you have no more use for your organs, you’d object to letting a person with a drug problem use them to gain even a bit more life, when it costs you nothing? You’d just prefer that they die on general principle?

**
Many people need organs, I suppose, and it really isn’t their fault. Many of these people are in general in ill health. In the old days they would just die. Sounds cruel, but that was the way it was. Society as a whole was better off by focusing cheap medical care on healthy people who were temporarily sick, instead of spending huge mega amounts of dollars on people who are chronically ill and will probably die soon anyway, or on people who are 90 years old and sucking the medicare system dry.
Like I said, I’m a terrible person. **

You concede that many people need organ donations, through no fault of their own, but then suggest they should die anyway, for the good of society. And for this reason, you personally refuse to be an organ donor - an act on your part which requires almost no effort. It isn’t that you have any religious or moral objection - at least, not that you’ve mentioned here. It’s simply that for one reason or another, you prefer that the people who might get an organ donation simply die.

You have a remarkable gift for accurate self-assessment. I stand corrected on my first statement.

[Fish]

Mr. Excellent, I don’t know if this will help you, because it’s only one unsubstantiated line from an admittedly biased source:

http://www.optn.org/about/myths.asp

Myth: Your religion prohibits organ donation.

Fact: All major organized religions approve of organ and tissue donation and consider it an act of charity.

It might not solve your problem but it may give you grounds on which to base your case.

As for you, bri1600bv, and your arguments, I think I have also helped to show that most are uninformed nonsense. Some transplant regions do withhold transplants from what are called non-compliant patients or re-offending patients: drug users, to name one, who are likely to destroy the organ they are given. Think it isn’t so? My uncle was denied liver transplant for this reason.

Organ transplant is also not given with preference to people who have a ternimal disease such as cancer; to a life-endangering complication such as HIV – they specifically screen for it; and they triage for things such as expected remaining lifespan, number of dependents, and so on. I was told by the University of Washington Medical Center, who coordinated my transplant, that given the choice between a chain-smoking father of three and a childless non-smoking bachelor the same age, the father would get the organ first. Given the choice between your hypothetical 90-year-old man and a spry 40-year-old, the 40-year-old would get it. All your arguments, stripped of their emotional overreaction, have been accounted for except your own personal squeamishness. Because the shortage of organs is so dire – the national average is that 8.6% of the patients on the liver transplant list will die waiting – they must make these decisions. I do not envy the person with that particular red pen.

If organs ever do become available in sufficient supply, we can revisit this argument. Xenotransplantation looks promising.

FISH

[Fish]

Drat, sorry about the double post. I forgot something.

They don’t give a person a transplant because he walks in off the street with acute liver failure or end-stage renal disease. The person still has to pass certain physical criteria that indicate he can survive a gruelling transplant. Kidney transplant surgery is a matter of two hours, perhaps; liver transplant takes ten to twelve. Patients with weak hearts, congested lungs, emphysema, and so on, do not make good candidates for transplant. The 90-year-old man would have to be in exceptionally good condition (and also likely be the last person on the list to boot).

FISH

[Pushkin]

Seriously folks, you’ll never know if its someone close to you that ends up a recipient of your organs.
I posted a link a while back on the boards about a story in Northern Ireland. While a guy was in hospital waiting for a transplant, his nephew was moved to putting himself on the organ donor register. Not long after the nephew was murdered and his organs ended up being transplanted into his uncle. Can’t say it was the reason for me signing up but it made me think.

[Tinkertoy]

*Originally posted by bri1600bv *
Many people need organs, I suppose, and it really isn’t their fault. Many of these people are in general in ill health. In the old days they would just die. Sounds cruel, but that was the way it was. Society as a whole was better off by focusing cheap medical care on healthy people who were temporarily sick, instead of spending huge mega amounts of dollars on people who are chronically ill and will probably die soon anyway, or on people who are 90 years old and sucking the medicare system dry.

As I said in an earlier post I will be needing a heart in the future. But you keep yours honey. I want one that works.

[Tinkertoy]

*Originally posted by bri1600bv *
Many people need organs, I suppose, and it really isn’t their fault. Many of these people are in general in ill health. In the old days they would just die. Sounds cruel, but that was the way it was. Society as a whole was better off by focusing cheap medical care on healthy people who were temporarily sick, instead of spending huge mega amounts of dollars on people who are chronically ill and will probably die soon anyway, or on people who are 90 years old and sucking the medicare system dry.

As I said in an earlier post I will be needing a heart in the future. But you keep yours honey. I want one that works.

[Tinkertoy]

OK! I only clicked reply once and then got a “can’t find server” Admit it Zotti you let the hampsters get drunk again last night.