Why don’t they make organ donation the default choice when someone dies? Right now, you have to sign the back of your driver’s license that says “Yes, donate my organs!” Why not switch it so that you have to sign to say “NO, leave me intact!”?
It seems to me that this would easily and quickly increase the number of donated organs available by a nice margin. I believe that the chief objections to organ donation would still be satisfied, as you could opt out if you wished.
So, any opinions either way?
(By the way, where is this regulated? Is it federal or state level?)
Under the current system, when somebody dies no action can be taken to “harvest” any usable organs until it is verified that the deceased wished to donate his organs and a relative or other responsible person signs the necessary paperwork. Many times potentially usable organs are lost because no authorized person can be located during the narrow time period when the organs are viable or authorization is denied by the next-of-kin regardless of the wishes of the deceased.
Making donation the default option would increase the number of donated organs because it would eliminate the need to obtain post-mortem authorization.
In order for this system to work, there would have to be a standard opt-out procedure in place. I seem to remember reading a story once based on this premise; if you did not wish to be an organ donor you carried a small i.d. (sort of like dog tags IIRC). Of course, you would have to have your non-donor i.d. with you at all times in case of an accident.
This is, in theory, the law in France. One has to state he refuses to donate one’s organs. And it’s more complicated than checking a box on your driving licence. You have actually to be aware of this law and inform a particular organism of your refusal. This information is stored in a database.
Practically, this law is totally ignored. No organ harvesting is done without the consent of the family. There would be a too great outrage if it happened, I assume. Just imagine a crying mother explaining on TV at prime time how her daughter’s body has been defaced by an insensitive medical team despite her opposition. I remember a case where the family had allowed the harvesting of some organs, and the corneas had been transplanted too (the family didn’t allowed that) by mistake. It resulted in a huge controversy which lasted for a long time. Tons of MD from transplant teams deeply apologized, explained that they always respect the will of the family and swore that never ever such an error would happen again.
Even people advocating the donation of organs don’t really support this law, apparently. Instead, they advise people to have a card issued by some pro-donation association on them at all times. But apparently, even when the medical team is aware of the wish of the deceased person to donate his organs, they still don’t harvest them without the family consent.
I suppose that this being such a sensitive issue, such a system can’t really be accepted in practice.
First, there are religous issues involved. Some religons do not allow for the body to be subject to an optopsy(SP?) much less the donations of organs.
Second, it’s my body and the state has no right to dispose of my body. My family has that right.
Third, once the state has the right to your dead body the next right the state will ask for is to organs that can be donated against your will.
I doubt the third option on my list will ever come to pass but you never know.
In Nevada they are trying to pass a law that would give doctors the ‘right’ to use organs from brain dead people if the brain dead person could not be identified within 12 hours. I am going to fight this. Doctors should not have the power to decide what happens. It should be up to the person and family.
Sleestak - you’re missing the point. You could still opt out for religious reasons.
And I don’t buy your argument about the State: depending where you live, most people rely on the State (at least if they have a national health service) to save their lives and provide them free organs should they need it, so unless you have private medical insurance I reckon the State does have some claim on your corpse.
And if all these over-squeamish people could just get it out of their tiny minds that organ donation “defaces” the body things would be a lot easier. Sure - if you are against receiving as well - you may hold this view.
But if you reckon it is OK to receive an organ, what a disgusting, selfish, sick, perverted view to imagine that donor’s body as being “defaced” by their life-saving gift. I would say their body is elevated by such an act.
I am more and more unequivocally of the opinion that those that object to organ donation on whatever grounds - religious, squeamish, selfish - should NEVER be allowed to receive an organ themselves.
It seems to me that there is a completely reasonable case for this proposal; if you don’t want to donate, you simply need to say so.
But we are quite happy to let the medical profession make assumptions in other areas (For example, I believe that consent to perform a medical procedure may be assumed in certain cases, otherwise we’d be stuck with “I know you’re unconscious and bleeding to death, but could you just sign this consent form, so we can operate and save your life?”).
It’s a unique situation*, of course; assumed consent when you are gravely injured is consent that you are willing to recieve (treatment, medication, organs), whereas assumed consent to harvest organs is that you are willing to give
*I can’t think of a valid parallel; seizure of property on death by the state wouldn’t be an exact analogy because that property may have tangible value that could be inherited.
I don’t think there’s a precise parallel, but there is some parallel. Although my body has no tangible value (assuming commercial organ trading is not being advocated here, and I’m sure we all agree it’s not), my body, how it is handled and what happens to it may have very considerable emotional significance for my family and friends. In addition the knowledge that my body is mine to dispose after my death may have very considerable emotional signficance for me while I am alive.
I think this is an area where you are obliged (not just practically, but morally) to respect people’s feelings, even if you don’t agree with them. Istara thinks that the view that organ donation results in the defacement of the body of the donor is “disgusting, selfish, sick, perverted”; she’s entitled to her view, but the fact that she holds it very strongly does not entitle her to impose it on others. In particular it does not entitle her to punish them by withholding necessary and available medical treatment simply because their views on this matter differ from hers. Silentgoldfish puts the point in less extreme terms (and doesn’t draw the same conclusion as Istara), but he “doesn’t understand why people are squeamish about what happens to their body”. He doesn’t have to understand; he just has to accept that they do have these feelings, and that they are entitled to have them, and that they don’t have to justify them to him or anyone else.
As it happens, I don’t have a particularly strong opposition to the view that you should “opt out” of organ donation, at any rate so far as adults are concerned. Those who don’t feel strongly enough about this to opt out presumably don’t feel strongly about this, and so they are not injured by the prospect of being organ donors after death. Where possible, relatives should be consulted and their wishes respected, but where the circumstances do not allow that I’m comfortable with an “opt out” approach.
I have no pretensions about my body or organs. Hell, what with the cost of funerals and stuff, I’m very tempted to donate my body to science after I die. But I want to be sure that I’m 100% dead or past the point of help before that happens. I’d rather not have the organ donor tag on my driver’s license, but my family knows full well that if it ever came to that, I would want my organs to go be of use to someone else.
The more I think about it, the more I am in favour of default donation; I believe that after apathy, the ‘ick’ factor is probably the biggest barrier for people; if organ donation was the default, they wouldn’t have to think about the ‘icky’ side of it.
I would probably suggest that this applies to adults only, with organ donation being by explicit consent for minors.
UDS - in the last thread on this, I trod over eggshells trying to reply tactfully and kindly to you given your revelations of personal tragedy. This is a “Great Debate” and I am giving my personal opinion, so please do not try to deliberately slur me by suggesting that I - any more than anyone else in this thread - am trying to “impose my view on others.”
I stated explicitly that it was my opinion, which I am entitled to share at the invitation of the OP. At no point did I say “you should think this” or “you should think that”. I just gave my own views. I respect people’s right to have different feelings, I don’t have to respect those actual feelings. The fact that I find Poster X’s opinion disgusting does not mean I think he has any less right to hold it.
And I stand by my personal opinion and feeling that the opinion that organ-donation “defaces” a body is sick and disgusting. A perons has every right to think that if they want. But I abhor their opinion in the strongest possible way.
I don’t think there’s necessarily a problem with ‘imposing views on others’ when the others in question don’t particularly care to have any firm contrary views and doing so is demonstrably beneficial (my doctor imposed upon me her view that antibiotics would quite nicely clear up an infection I had; it turns out she was right, although I’m sure I could have refused, if I felt strongly enough).
I believe absolutely that one should have to opt out of organ donation. I’ve carried a donor card for years, but at first I opted out of donating my corneas or my heart, at the time I thought that they were just too personal (in a weird sort of way) to give away, in a way that a kidney, for example, wasn’t.
I soon found myself unable to justify that, so I ticked the ‘any part of my body’ box, I’m not going to need it, am I? I think that imposing the additional restriction of getting family consent would merely serve to minimise the benefits. We’re already losing organs because, as has already been mentioned, consent can’t be obtained while the organs are still viable, so let’s not make it harder than it already is.
Obviously people have the absolute right to opt out if they want to, but their decision should be just that, an opt out, not an opt in.
I’m sorry if I didn’t make myself clear. I agree that simply by stating your view, however forcefully, you are not “imposing” it on others. You are completely within your rights to hold and express your view, and nobody should suggest otherwise. If you understood that I was doing that, I apologise.
But you went beyond expressing your view. You urge that those who will not become organ donors because they do not share your view should themselves be denied organ transplants. I think that measure, if adopted, would amount to an imposition on them of your view. That is what I was referring to.
UDS - sorry if I overreacted, and thanks for the clarification. I guess this is something we both feel strongly about! It makes for a heated debate, if nothing else.
Your fundamental thesis is that the people of the EU do not want further integration. It is clear that, whatever their views may be, only a small minority feel strongly enough on the subject to make it the focus of their votes in elections – even their votes in elections to the European Parliament.
You respond that this tells us more about the inadequacy of electoral systems as methods of expressing views on policy issues, and there is a point here. But the fundamental thesis – that the public do not want more european integration – remains to be established.
In the EU as a whole, a majority consider that integration is not proceeding as fast as they would like. Only in two countries is the reverse true (and the UK is not one of those countries).
In the EU as a whole, and in all member states, a majority of people want the EU to have the same or an increased role in their lives in fives years time compared to now. In the UK only 27 per cent of people would like to see the role of the EU reduced in the next five years, and that is the highest figure for any country.
As regards the euro, a majority in each of the eurozone countries favoured the euro. In Germany, 50% of those polled favoured the euro; 31% opposed it. Of those countries which have remained outside the euro, the Swedes favouredthe euro, the Danes were almost equally divided (47% in favour, 48% against) and only the UK was strongly opposed (58% against, 27% in favour).
In the EU as a whole, and in every country except Finland, more people favoured further enlargement than opposed it.
There were negatives as well. In particular people did not feel well-informed about issues. Nevertheless there is little support in these figures for the notion that the people of the EU are unhappy about the European project, that they oppose further integration or that they want to slow the whole thing down.
Could it be, sirjamesp, that European government leaders are just better at getting the sense of what their electorates want than you are?
Damn! The previous post relates to a different thread, and I have posted it to this thread by mistake I will e-mail a moderator and as to have that post and this one deleted. Please ignore them both.