Have they said if the family donated this thug’s organs? Certainly seems like the best outcome from this. Eyes and kidneys could help at least four people.
I guess a previously transplanted heart.can’t be reused? He’s been on anti rejection drugs. Would that invalidate donating all his organs?
I have a simpler hypothetical for smapti. You are in a shipwreck and are lucky enough to cling to a piece of debris just large enough to hold you and luckily, 2 life vests are caught on the debris. Three people float past screaming that they cannot swim. You are in the middle of the ocean and then are no other people, debris or ships for miles.
Person #1 is an elderly man who is bleeding profusely from a chest wound. He is drifting in and out of consciousness.
Person #2 is a young healthy man who appears to be staying afloat with effort but otherwise appears uninjured.
Person #3 is a young seemingly healthy young woman who has lost both legs and is bleeding profusely from the stumps.
You see sharks circling in the distance. You have a superficial leg wound that does not stop you from swimming but is bleeding.
Who do you give the life vests to?
Do you remove your own vest and give it to one of the people mentioned?
Finally, nobody has brought up the real fact that people are less likely to donate organs if they are going to be “wasted”. It is hard enough to get people to agree to donate a heart when the average survival after a transplant is 5 years. Now what if there is a lottery for every person with heart disease and potential donors become aware that there is a 90% chance that the heart they donate will go to somebody who will not take the antirejection medications and the heart will be discarded in a month anyway. Do you not understand that people are less likely to want to donate. Regardless of what you think of the situation, people agree to donate their loved ones’ organs because they think somebody will have some additional benefit. I can tell you that one of the all time worst moments of my medical school career was watching a donated kidney turn black in my hands during surgery because of hyperacute rejection, despite it being a good match, and having to tell a father that he had just essentially thrown away a kidney trying to save his son and that the son would likely die anyway. And this was a living-related donor. IT is much much harder to get unrelated people to donate organs.
True. But Smapti appears to believe that life is worth living and should be extended regardless of the circumstances. This is what I was getting at in post #175.
All I can say is, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live through any of the scenarios I mentioned in that post.
Just wondering…Have you seen the film 12 Years a Slave?
It features, among many other horrors, a young slave woman named Patsy who endures rape and beatings from her master. She asks a newer slave, Platt, to help her drown herself. He refuses. Some time later, her master beats her so hard that she passes out and almost dies.
At the end, Platt is rescued and freed, but Patsy is stuck where she is. She has nothing to look forward to but more of the same misery and abuse. We don’t know what happens after that, though I can well imagine that maybe she decided to slit her wrists or something and end her life of horror.
Can you really blame her for wanting to die?
Here’s my question: what checks ARE there on the people who currently make the decisions in these cases, so there ISN’T any “Let’s see, black, lives in the projects, nope, I don’t need to read any more, rejected, next!”?
Good question. Once you are in the UNOS pool (on the list) allocation is blinded. The limiting factor is getting on the list.
From here.
Information about getting on the transplant list:
Unfortunately, you have to have a transplant team to get you on the list. There are patient representatives at most transplant centers to help the patient and family. However, I suppose there is nothing that would preclude institutionalized racism at one center except that patients are free to go to another center to get on the list (admittedly a difficult option for most).
I stay where I am and take no action.
You said you also do not want to be an organ donor. Is this related?
I believe every state has different rules. I had a friend who needed a kidney transplant. He looked into three nearby states. One put him on the top of the list because he was quite ill. Another didn’t place him on the list, because he was too old. And the third put him near the bottom of the list.
He eventually got a transplant. I think it was from state 1, but don’t actually know.
So your ethical system requires you to let 3 people die, rather than choose to aid one of them? That’s one fucked up system you have. I hope you never become a victim of your own monstrous beliefs.
In the scenario provided, two of the people are likely to die within minutes due to factors completely unrelated to any action or inaction on my part, and attempting to help the third would more likely result in both of us dying.
Tossing the guy a life jacket is likely to kill you both?
You help the healthy one because the other two are bleeding and will draw the sharks as they drift away.
Of course, the healthy one might kill you for the biscuits in your pockets.
I just want to clarify. Transplant centers do not rank people on the list. It is more a yes/no decision that puts a patient into a pool of eligible recipients. Any decisions from there are made by UNOS (see the links above). The only reason he might get a transplant sooner in one state is if the states are in different geographic areas and there are fewer patients waiting in that area’s pool. Once the patient is in the pool, UNOS has a formula to decide who gets the next organ based on geographic area, genetic match, and health.
Smapti-what if you are in a lifeboat and only have room for one more person and the three people I mentioned above are there but none are severely injured. Who gets the seat?
The hypothetical states that he can’t swim. Tossing him a life jacket won’t save him - I’d still have to jump into shark-infested waters with an open wound and carry him back to the piece of debris.
Whoever gets there first.
Post #224:
Originally Posted by Smapti View Post
Because it is inherently wrong to deliberately end an innocent life.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Just wondering…Have you seen the film 12 Years a Slave?
It features, among many other horrors, a young slave woman named Patsy who endures rape and beatings from her master. She asks a newer slave, Platt, to help her drown herself. He refuses. Some time later, her master beats her so hard that she passes out and almost dies.
At the end, Platt is rescued and freed, but Patsy is stuck where she is. She has nothing to look forward to but more of the same misery and abuse. We don’t know what happens after that, though I can well imagine that maybe she decided to slit her wrists or something and end her life of horror.
Can you really blame her for wanting to die?
?