Should we show mercy to those that haven’t? What type of society do you want to live in, and how far do you want to carry a eye for a eye?
It’s not “an eye for an eye.” It’s simply a way of ensuring those who benefit from a system were willing to pay into the system. Consider it like taxes. Not to hijack my own topic, but do you want illegal immigrants to benefit from our various societal perks when they don’t pay taxes?
And besides, organ donation is one of the most passive forms of paying into the system… After all, you’re dead, and rather than your corpse turning into a worm’s feeding ground you could save lives.
I thought I posted this already:
- Opt-out system.
- If you opt-out, you are not eligible for a donated organ. Your SSN is removed from the recipient list. You can not be reinstated until you have opted in for one year (no deathbed conversions).
People die regularly because they were not able to get an organ - removing those who refuse to share themselves will not result in any waste.
Just wanted to share that after reading this thread, I registered to be an organ donor (don’t want to be left out if the BrandonR bill is passed).
I hadn’t signed up originally when I got my license, for various not important reasons.
Apparently, contrary to what I had thought, it’s very easy to signup in Massachusetts. It’s a simple online form that takes all of a minute to fill out. You can also check your status to verify that you are/are not a donor.
Good for you, FestiveHarpy.
Coincidentally, today I received a letter from Lifeline of Ohio that detailed what organs/tissues they were able to use from my husband. It was really special to me to see what good things they were able to do. They created life from death. It doesn’t make it worth it, but it eases the pain a little to think someone can see because of my husband.
“Signing up” to be an organ donor can be as simple as carrying a slip of paper with your signature on it that says “in the event of my demise, I wish for my usable organs to be donated to those in need.” It doesn’t have to be on your driver’s license to be official. You can even download an organ donor card that you can carry with you. It’s less complicated than ordering pizza.
Given the ease of the process, and the fact that it will never require any personal sacrifice whatsoever on the part of any living person, I don’t see any reason not to say that if it comes down to two people who are equal matches for an organ, and both are equally ill, it should go to the one who took 3 minutes out of their life to print and sign a card.
Which is the greater travesty:
a) Someone needs an organ, which is available from a donor, and gets it, even though that person would not have wished his body to be used in the same way; or,
b) Someone needs an organ, and there is an available organ, but the organ goes to waste and the person dies.
(b) seems petty to me.
Just to throw a monkey wrench into the debate :
Watch this video and see for yourself what the future holds. Organ donation may soon be obsolete. They’ll just grow you a new organ from your own cells.
If one objects to donating their organs on religious grounds, I think one would really prefer not to receive anyone else’s. I personally am about equally squicked by having someone else’s organs replacing mine as by having mine in someone else. Further, the former I’d have to live with, whereas the latter I probably couldn’t stop. So I guess I’d rather be an organ donor than an organ recipient, as it were.
Rigth, it needs to be an Opt-Out system, and the next-of-kin can’t change it, either.
It won’t get wasted, it will just go to the next person on the list (most of the time).
It wouldn’t have helped me — my liver was genetically defective. As with cystic fibrosis, cloning a new identical organ from the patient’s original tissue would not be any kind of cure.
When we can overcome the problem of genetic editing, there would be obvious advantages: namely, a lower or non-existent dose of immunosuppressants to prevent graft rejection. A body wouldn’t reject a cloned organ, I suspect.
Even so, even if we can invent a way to manufacture and indefinitely store a bank of hypoallergenic organs, there will always be a need not just for actual surgical transplantation, but for donors. Liver transplants are triaged on a list organized by urgency, for instance. In reverse order:
2b: Chronic liver disease, few signs and symptoms of liver failure.
2a: Chronic liver disease, abundant signs and symptoms of liver failure (swelling of the abdomen, jaundice, yellowing of the eyes, etc).
1: Acute liver failure, as from poisoning (eat a bunch of bad mushrooms, etc).
0: Oops. Never mind.*
Since we can’t wholly prevent case 1 I doubt we can never dispense with donation.
*Not really, but I think it’s funny.
Was he able to donate? I can’t think of a polite way to ask that question - please ignore it if you want to.
He was dead too long for them to use his major organs, but they were able to use blood vessels, bone, muscles and tendons, fascia lata, skin, and corneas.
Thank you for agreeing for this to happen. It’s a terrible thing to have to say yes to, but a wonderful thing that you did.