People should maybe open their eyes to the reality of what their loved one’s body is going to look like six months down the track (unless they freeze it or embalm it).
Rotten, or cinders.
I know this is harsh, but far more harsh is seeing someone slowly die or die yourself because too many people’s “emotions” prevent organ donation. Let these people watch a dying child, then they might wake up.
Istara
I have watched a child dying – my own – and if, after death, I had been asked to allow the surgical removal of my child’s organs for transplant, I would have refused. (Nobody asked, I think for medical reasons.)
I was, and still am, a donor myself, but when I was placed in that situation I could not bear the prospect of my son’s body being treated in that way. Was I weak or selfish? Some might think so, but my position came from love for my son and respect for his body. I won’t go into a fuller explanation of my feelings about this and the background to them, but I still feel and think that my position was justified, and would be the same today.
My son’s condition was not one which could have been corrected by a transplant; if it could, and if a transplant had been available, I would certainly have accepted it. Is this inconsistent? I think not. I lack the courage to climb tall ladders and rescue people from burning buildings, but if I am trapped at the top of a burning building should a courageous fireman refuse to rescue me for that reason?
I accept that there is a social good served in enouraging organ donation, but the very considerations which persuade us that organ donation is good should also persuade us that withholding or diverting medical treatment is bad.
UDS - I am very, very sorry for your loss.
Please take all my comments here in the spirit of general open debate, and not in anyway a personal attack.
I do not see organ-donation as any way analogous to firefighting. We are all equal as organ-donors, it’s not like people are bred or trained specially to be one.
Perhaps a kinder way to motivate people to donate would be to show them the parents of live children who are only alive because someone had the courage and selflessness to make that very difficult decision to donate.
The closest experience I have had with organ donation was interviewing the parents whose only daughter was knocked down by a car. They chose to donate her organs, and she saved and improved NINE people’s lives. It also kept her alive for them in a way. Because of this they did some awareness raising of organ donation.
Talking to them was the most difficult, moving interview I have ever done. It was all I could do not to break down in tears hearing them talk about this child who had been a gift to them and was now a gift to others. In no way was it ever felt or implied that taking her organs was in some way “disrespectful” - quite the opposite, it was honouring her life and memory.
I really, really cannot understand refusing donation of your child’s or anyone’s organs on grounds of “love” and “respect”, yet being prepared to accept somone else’s (a person by which argument was shown less “love” and “respect” by those that consented to donate). I find this hypocritical and unjustifiable.
How many people here actually aren’t organ donors? The sort of person who would want someone else’s organ in his body probably doesn’t care if his own are used by someone else.
But I am not an organ donor, and would of course be ashamed to receive an organ. I think that those of us who object to organ donation should not be :gasp: given organs we object to.
Hmmm. Guess I need to carry a “no extraordinary means” card.
Thank you.
Be assured that I do.
Fine, replace the firefighter in my earlier example with a courageous bystander.
I take your point, but I feel strongly that the only ethical way in which you can persuade people to give their organs or their relatives’ organs is by a combination of public education and personal counselling and support which will bring them to a point where their thoughts and feelings allow for organ donation. If, having gone through that process, you have failed to bring them round to your point of view, the fact that you “cannot understand” their position does not entitle you to punish them for it by having necessary medical treatment withheld or deprioritised.
It is also illogical. It would be effective in coercing only those who actually needed organ transplants themselves – a tiny number. If, because we have a desparate need for organs, we are entitled to coerce people into becoming organ donors by withholding necessary medical treatment, why stop at withholding organ transplants? (Unless, of course, you think “poetic justice” provides the justification which ethical considerations fail to provide.)
You can see where I’m going with this.
Incidentally, I do not agree that people in this situation are being hypocritical. Inconsistent, perhaps, but not hypocritical. My feelings would have prevented me from donating my son’s organs, but I do not suggest that everybody should share those feelings, and that others should not donate organs, or that thos who donate are lacking in love and respect. (Indeed, I am perfectly willing to donate my own organs.) So there is nothing hypocritical in me accepting organs which others are willing to donate.