# Opt out organ donation and relatives' wishes **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 2, 2013, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463 "2013-07-02T17:33:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/161 "2013-07-04T18:16:41Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > And I, for one, find it very telling that proponents of compulsory organ harvesting are perfectly willing to use loaded and inaccurate words like “donation” when they know full well that what they advocate isn’t a donation by any sense of the word, and will admit when pressed that they don’t care what the word means. An opt-out system is a donation in any sense of the word; there’s nothing compulsory about anything other than checking a box if you’re opposed. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/162 "2013-07-04T18:22:32Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > An opt-out system is a donation in any sense of the word; there’s nothing compulsory about anything other than checking a box if you’re opposed. Except, as noted above, when the consequence of checking the box is that your doctor leaves you to die. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/163 "2013-07-04T18:25:34Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Except, as noted above, when the consequence of checking the box is that your doctor leaves you to die. I’ve already said two or three times that I’m opposed to that idea. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/164 "2013-07-04T18:27:09Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I’ve already said two or three times that I’m opposed to that idea. And good on you for that. The other people upthread haven’t been as generous. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/165 "2013-07-04T18:29:03Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Oops! I meant the link in post #134, of course. Linky no worky without Medscape membership. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/166 "2013-07-04T18:29:35Z")
Several people have suggested making it mandatory in this thread. “You don’t need this. He does. Give it up or we will take it” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/167 "2013-07-04T18:34:42Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Linky no worky without Medscape membership. Link works just fine-if you close the membership box, the article will still be there. ---
**Author:** ![thicksantorum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/65b543/32.png) [@thicksantorum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thicksantorum)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/168 "2013-07-04T18:35:22Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Several people have suggested making it mandatory in this thread. > > “You don’t need this. He does. Give it up or we will take it” Talking to corpses, now? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/169 "2013-07-04T18:42:25Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > - A guarantee that no person shall be presumed to have opted in by default if it cannot be demonstrated that they have been provided with the opportunity to opt out. > - A guarantee that no person shall be denied access to organ transplants due to inability to pay. > - A guarantee that no person, under any circumstances, will be denied access to organ transplants on the basis of not being a donor. > - A guarantee that no person who is a registered donor, under any circumstances, will be denied care, induced to die, or harvested for organs at any point prior to complete and total death. > - Capital punishment (preferably by vivisection for the purpose of organ harvesting, without anesthesia) for any doctors and/or other medical personnel violating any of the above guarantees. Nope, if they are too stupid to know what is going on in the world, fuck em. This is already a rule. Nope. You don’t pay in, you don’t get to take out. This is already the law. And, I am not a big beleiver in Capital punishment in any case. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/170 "2013-07-04T18:44:36Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Yes, it’s a thing. Your family has veto power over your organ donation wishes as soon as you are dead. So, my cousin, who hasn’t met me in 30 years, can over-rule my express wishes? Bad idea. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/171 "2013-07-04T18:49:31Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > This is over-reaching socialism taken to the logical end. > > ETA- I’m a left-leaning liberal, and this disturbs me; the state can leave my corpse alone, thank you. Ever heard of autopsies? In that case the state really does take your corpse and cut it to little bits - unlike donations. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/172 "2013-07-04T18:50:14Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Because you’re the only one who thinks the precise definition of “donation” is important to this discussion. Instead of “organ donation”, “organ transfer” or “organ transplantation”, we could call it the “grand conspiracy to get at Smapti’s delicious organs”. I’m willing to call it that. > [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > If convicted murderers can receive organ donations why shouldn’t people who don’t want to be organ donors because they’ve heard stories\* about paramedics allowing people to die when they found they were organ donors. > > \*. I don’t believe such stories but understand the fears of those that do and understand why there’s a huge racial disparity when it comes to organ donation. Is that a question? In any case, since you didn’t bother to actually reply to what I said, I have no reason to reply to you. > [@Broomstick](#): > > Please tell me you understand that a lot of people either shouldn’t donate organs, or can’t donate organs due to medical history. Obviously, I don’t understand that because I’m a moron who thinks that people with AIDS and generalized cancer should give their organs. See my use of “willing to do for others”. If they can’t allow others to live by having their organs harvested\*, then the problem is not that they are not willing. > [@Broomstick](#): > > Why do we give blood to people who can’t prove they’re blood donors themselves? > > Please tell me you understand that a lot of people either shouldn’t donate organs, or can’t donate organs due to medical history. > Nope, because that would be apportioning organs using non-medical criteria. In an individual sense, that is true. In a systemic sense, it does serve medical purposes to give people that major incentive to be an organ donor. \*Happy, Smapti? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/173 "2013-07-04T18:51:08Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Once we’ve decided the dead have no right to their organs, who’s to say the living have any right to them either? Hell, the next thing you know they’ll be burning the dead to ashes (crackle, crackle, crackle) or burying them in boxes. The horror! The dead have no rights to anything. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/174 "2013-07-04T18:58:09Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The dead have no rights to anything. To _anything?_ I guess you won’t be concerned when you die, then, and the state immediately seizes all your money and property and kicks your family out on the streets because it doesn’t belong to them. > [@DrDeth](#): > > This is already a rule. Except, as demonstrated upthread, it _isn’t._ > [@](#): > > Nope. You don’t pay in, you don’t get to take out. I’ll thank you for acknowledging that referring to it as “organ donation” is a _lie_, then, since you consider it to be a payment and not a gift. > [@](#): > > And, I am not a big beleiver in Capital punishment in any case. Except, as demonstrated upthread, that you believe it’s OK to sentence people to death if they have organs other people want, and that it’s OK to sentence people to death if they’re not an organ donor. Whereas I only believe in sentencing people to death if they’ve _committed a crime._ ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/175 "2013-07-04T19:09:26Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I guess you won’t be concerned when you die, then, and the state immediately seizes all your money and property and kicks your family out on the streets because it doesn’t belong to them. The differences between organ donation and inherited property have already been explained in this thread. Your property actually belongs to someone living and can be passed on because it’s still useful after the original owner dies. Your organs are of no use to you once you die, and even then most people here are giving you the option to die with them if you want that for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/176 "2013-07-04T19:11:00Z")
Except that, by decreasing the pool of donors _you_ may be condemning somebody to death. If the organ isn’t donated, nobody gets to use it. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/177 "2013-07-04T19:18:52Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > The differences between organ donation and inherited property have already been explained in this thread. Your property actually belongs to someone living and can be passed on because it’s still useful after the original owner dies. Your organs are of no use to you once you die, and even then most people here are giving you the option to die with them if you want that for some reason. You may want to have a word with **Voyager** about that, not with me; > [@Voyager](#): > > The dead have no rights to anything. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/178 "2013-07-04T19:22:32Z")
If the dead are having trouble asserting their rights, they can petition the courts. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/179 "2013-07-04T20:06:43Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Doctors violate ethical guidelines. sometimes for profit, sometimes for other motives. > To think that humans will ever be otherwise, that is for the most part, whackjobbery. > > Organ transplantation does get extra scrutiny. > Hospitals that do the procedures will have an ethics committee, at the minimum. > Still abuses can and do happen and to believe that is quite reasonable, as it’s true. So why is it that there’s been only _one_ example that even the most paranoid on the subject has been able to provide, and that example was of a terminally ill patient who had gone into a coma he almost certainly never would have come out of? > [@clairobscur](#): > > In France, where opt-out was the default (I write “was” because I’m not sure it’s still the case), it wasn’t actually implemented. In practice, organs wouldn’t be harvested without the consent of the family, and apparently not even when it was known that the deceased person wanted to donate his organs (as opposed to not having opted out). > > I remember that at some point, it was proposed to switch to opt-in, so that the will of the deceased would be officially registered and that doctors could mention it to the family. It was hoped that this would _raise_ the number of donations. I don’t know if we currently are, legally speaking, on an opt-in or an opt-out system. There are donor cards, but I don’t know if they have any actual meaning, legal or practical. > > Regardless of the legal theory, in France, the family decides, and the advice given to potential donors is to mention it to and discuss it with their close relative. Ouch. That’s… Wow. 😕 > [@Smapti](#): > > Considering that I have already cited upthread a case in this country _in the last decade_ in which a patient was deliberately killed for the purpose of harvesting their organs? I’d say not. You provided an example of a terminally ill patient who was being denied the care provided by a respirator on the grounds that all it was doing was prolonging the inevitable. The man was going to die either way. The difference was a handful of hours of his life, or useful organs for donation. Your example could not have been worse, and your citation is an emotional blog post. Hell, it goes out of its way to state: > [@](#): > > When Rosa arrived at the hospital soon after his cardiac arrest, a doctor told her Ruben would die, nothing could be done, and they would “pull the plug” after five days; that was their policy. They asked if she wanted to be in the room when they did it. > > That is standard way the medical establishment treats people with disabilities. The rationale seems to be, “He’s got a progressive disability that’s going to kill him eventually, maybe not right now, but it will. Why go through it all? Let’s just withhold treatment." > > … > > He did not die of adrenal leukodystrophy; his disease had not progressed that far. Ruben could have enjoyed many more years to watch Kobe dazzle fans on the court. He did not die of the cardiac arrest that sent him to the hospital; he was recovering from that before Roozrokh, et al, got a hold of him. Meanwhile, here’s the [NYT’s take on it](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/us/27transplant.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0): > [@](#): > > On Jan. 29, 2006, Ms. Navarro received a call from the facility that her son had been found unconscious, in cardiac and respiratory arrest, but that he had been revived and transported to Sierra Vista. His brain had been damaged from lack of oxygen. > > Several days later, Ms. Navarro says she was told by a doctor at the hospital, whose name she did not know, that her son would not recover and that he would be disconnected from life support. _Slightly different story_. “He had many more years” vs. “his brain had been damaged, he would not recover”. I dunno about you, I’m going with the NYT’s version. > [@](#): > > If it’s that easy to declare _a living person_ to be dead, then it seems like we’re already on the slippery slope to demanding that living people give up their organs for “the greater good”. No, we’re not, any more than pulling the plug on terminally comatose patients is a step down the slippery slope to killing people who get a case of the sniffles. By the evidence we can gather, Navarro was, at the time, “a living person” almost in the same way Terry Schiavo was. > [@](#): > > - Capital punishment (preferably by vivisection for the purpose of organ harvesting, without anesthesia) for any doctors and/or other medical personnel violating any of the above guarantees. Capital punishment for _assuming someone would donate their organs_. Dude… Go away. You’re nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463/180 "2013-07-04T20:07:45Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Eliminate financial means testing for getting an organ. If you need an organ you get it based on medical need and society pays for the operation, needed rehab if any, your anti-rejection meds, etc. for the rest of your life. Only then will everyone who contributes truly have an equitable chance of benefit as well. We already have that here in the UK. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opt-out-organ-donation-and-relatives-wishes/662463.md?page=10)