I agree there’s a principle, but IMO, it’s a very weak and specific one, thus I don’t believe dropping it would represent the any kind of precarious top end of any slippery slope.
What bad thing could happen later as a direct result of this specific, scope-limited change? Give us a hypothetical example.
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.
So can we start being honest and calling it “compulsory organ harvesting”, which you’ve made it clear is what you want, and stop calling it “donation”, which it clearly isn’t when you’re saying you want to cut people open by default and leave them to die if they object.
Once we’ve decided the dead have no right to their organs, who’s to say the living have any right to them either? “Sorry, sir, your organs are genetically compatible with at least three waiting donors who are of more worth to society than you.”
You’ve managed to describe this backward to make it sound like the government is injuring people. But I don’t support this idea either. I don’t think medical decisions should be based on anything other than medical issues.
I really don’t see how this is a logical end. It’s literally taking a resource that nobody has any real purpose for and using it to save lives.
And this stinks of thoughtless patronization. Maybe some people are so “unskilled” that they can’t drive a car. Maybe someone is so unskilled they can’t fill in a form for government aid. Maybe someone never heard about it at all. Perhaps someone’s remembering-to-double-check-forms-before-submitting-them skills are severely lacking. If you want to make provisions for every possibility of poor ability or mental capacity, you’ve got a bit of an uphill battle.
I’d say the dead person with organ failure in an opt in system suffered more from that ignorance of the process than the dead person with organs removed post-mortem in an opt out system.
But what would be inclusive enough? What if there were an opt out system, and everyone received a letter inviting them to return a form should they wish to opt out?
The only requirement is I get to write the form. I’m thinking it should have an option along the lines of “If I die, I’m taking as many of you fuckers as I can with me!”.
I suppose that would also be an example of someone getting more use out of a corpse than the previous owner. We should probably get organ donation hashed out before we start on this one, though.
Statements like that make me think that the opt-in people have this notion that if we just collect all the dead people we’ll have enough organs to go around. We won’t. It’s not enough simply to be brain dead, you have to die in the correct way (destroys your brain, leaves the organs intact), without having any diseases that would bar donation. That’s actually a small subset of people who die.
Something that is consistently forgotten in these arguments is that some people really do have a fear that if they’re in an accident the doctors might not fight as hard to save them if their organs are suitable for use in others. You can argue until you’re blue in the face that that just does not happen but certain groups have been oppressed often enough and hard enough that they simply don’t trust the authorities. Black people, for example, can point to the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment or J. Marion Sims teaching himself how to repair vaginal fistulas on black women he purchased for the purpose of experimentation where people like them were used for medical experimentation without their consent. People from such a background are not going to be very trusting about people taking from them for the “greater good”. In such a context, calling people reluctant to donate organs “lazy” or “not worthy of being called human” and so forth is not helping at all. Forcing such people to surrender their dead isn’t going to convince them this is a good idea. Regaining that sort of trust will take generations of not being exploited for the benefit of others.
Outside of the black community, the poor in this country are, as a practical matter, locked out of most health care. Even if you have Medicaid, many doctors won’t accept it and the care it provides is limited, and tens of millions of Americans have no insurance at all. If you don’t have insurance and/or suitcases full of money you will never, ever get a transplant in the US no matter how much you need it. So, you’re basically demanding the poor contribute to a program they are systematically excluded from. How, exactly, is that fair?
On top of that, doctors are human and are as prone to prejudice as anyone else. There have been studies that doctors can and sometimes do favor some groups over others.
So, bottom line here, these fears of exploitation are not entirely baseless.
Not insane – people HAVE been exploited and mistreated in the past in the name of the greater good. If you come from a victimized group why wouldn’t you be concerned?
And does “everything medicine in the modern world stands for” think it ethical that we demand the organs of the poor while excluding them from receiving organs based on their being poor? One of the iron-clad conditions I’d have for an “opt-out” system would be the removal of financial testing for organ recipients. If everyone has to give then everyone has to really actually have equal access. You want to harvest the organs of poor people? Fine. Then poor people get equal access to the organs and their organ recipient needs get paid for by the same society that demands “gimme”. That is not the system we have now in this country (US).
Another thing – you can sign all the documents you want to be an organ donor, but if your relatives object your wishes will be overridden. The family has veto power after you’re dead. How about we change that first? If you sign an organ donor card you are an organ donor and if your relatives don’t like that they can go pound sand.
People have given reasons that are important to them, but they have been dismissed by others.
Every opt-out country named has universal health care – EVERYONE has an equal shot at organs should they need them. In the US that is emphatically not the case. If you don’t have health insurance – and 40-50 million people don’t – you will NEVER get an organ no matter how much you need it due solely to financial reasons. So 40-50 million people in the US would be forced to participate in a system that will never provide this benefit for them.
There is a long history of medical experimentation on black people in this country. There is also a history of exploiting the poor, as well as doing things like involuntary sterilization in the US. Given that history, I don’t think fears about doctors deciding this person’s life isn’t as important as these other peoples’ lives are entirely baseless.
I get asked “do you want to be an organ donor?” every time I renew my license. We’re already doing that.
Yes, we would still have an organ shortage. It’s not enough to die, you have to die in a manner that doesn’t damage your organs. That usually mean brain-death following traumatic injury. People who have ever had cancer of any sort, or certain infections, who die of various diseases, will not have usable organs. The vast majority of deaths are NOT trauma. Sure, we’d get more organs but it still wouldn’t be enough to help all those who need one.
Oh, really? Funny thing about kidneys – you can live a long time on dialysis waiting for one. If your liver quits on you, though, there’s no substitute and you’ll be dead in a very short time. In absolute numbers there may be more people waiting for kidneys, but the people who need organs like livers or lungs might argue that’s where the real shortage is because there’s no stop-gap for those on the waiting list.
^ This is the US attitude and system. Again – the opt-out nations listed have a different system, where you get organs based on need and not because you can afford them. In those countries, yes, everyone contributes to everyone else’s care. This makes opt-out more palatable.
Sure they do – if you can’t get health insurance you will never, ever get a donated organ in the US because you can’t afford it. I have a huge objection to forcing people to give into a system they’ll never get anything out of.
And state ID cards function as organ donor cards just as drivers’ licenses do, and even if you don’t drive you’ll have to have some form of ID to function in society.
Forget the corpse – in the US, donated organs are a “gigantic boon” only to those who have health insurance. If you aren’t in that group you can give all you want, but you won’t ever get, not even to save your life.
Funny thing, though – there are tax-supported government programs that even the poorest and least advantage benefit from. If you don’t have health insurance then organ donation – yours or anyone else’s – will never benefit you at all.
If you aren’t insured in the US it doesn’t matter how sick you are, or how often you’ve declared your own willingness to donate, you’ll never get an organ anyway.
Until we fix that no, we shouldn’t have an opt-out program.
So, do you agree with me that it’s unjust that medical decisions in this country are made every day based not on medical need but on whether or not your health insurance will pay for it, or whether or not someone has insurance or not?
Really? That’s so ridiculous an extrapolation I’m tempted to just dismiss it out of hand, but OK… who’s to say the living have any right to them either?
[ul]
[li]The Hippocratic oath (“first, do no harm”)[/li][li]The Universal declaration of human rights, in particular, articles 3 (“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”) and 5 (“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”)[/li][li](IN the USA) the declaration of Independence (“All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties”)[/li][/ul]
Will that be enough, for now?
Part of the difficulty here is that sometimes we’re talking about ideal systems and sometimes we’re talking about what would happen if we made the minimum changes possible to create an opt out system whilst leaving everything else the same.
To those who oppose the idea of opt out for reasons other than the idea that it’s wrong, in principle, for the default position to be potential donation: what would it take to make opt out a good thing?
[quote=“Mangetout, post:129, topic:662463”]
[li]The Hippocratic oath (“first, do no harm”)[/li][/quote]
Doctors aren’t required to take that oath, and even if they do, it does not have any force of law or karma-mechanism to put teeth into it.
[quote]
[li]The Universal declaration of human rights, in particular, articles 3 (“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”) and 5 (“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”)[/li][/quote]
It’s a declaration of nice sentiments, and in the US at least it is not a legal document or law.
[quote]
[li](IN the USA) the declaration of Independence (“All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties”)[/li][/quote]
Again, a mere declamation with no actual force of law behind it.
They’re nice sentiments, but have no legal force. Try again.
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.
I worked in a hospital for a number of years.
I saw, in a very peripheral way, some of what goes into organ transplant.
It’s complicated, expensive, difficult, lengthy, risky, and doesn’t always work.
When it does work, a lifetime of medications and followup therapy is the best possible outcome.
So opt-in or opt-out, organ donation isn’t some kind of sure thing.
It’s one possible strategy to be considered among other options.
Having an abundance of organs would create an emotional argument to a situation which requires logic.
In my opinion. I’m not a doctor, I just worked near them.
…But you do admit that these fears are, at least in this day and age, completely irrational and largely senseless, right? Comparing the modern times to the days when racism was still not just popular but politically sensible, or even to the slaveholding days, is a bit on the ridiculous side.
“Fair” doesn’t really quite matter in this case, as the net gain to society is still overwhelmingly positive, as there is no actual cost to society. That said, I favor both kickbacks for actually donating and universal healthcare.
Hellova jump from “doctors can and sometimes do favor some groups over others” to “doctors will kill you for your organs”…
No, and my fears of being attacked by a swarm of africanized bees on my way home from college aren’t entirely baseless either, but if I tried to use them as an excuse to get out of going to my exams, they’d kick me out and recommend I take meds.
And the catholic church burned witches a the stake, which is why today I am terrified of all Christians.
:eek:
This is a thing?!
Yes, and rightfully so, because those reasons are for the most part paranoid wackjobbery. Hell, when pressed, I was offered exactly one case where death was brought on quicker to harvest organs, and that was in the case of a patient suffering from a terminal illness who had gone into a coma and by all rights could have been declared legally dead right then and there. I’m sorry, but that’s not well-justified. That’s a terrible reason.
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.
Using that logic, people should stop going to doctors for any reason.
The problem is that if you’re ill enough to require a transplant, odds are you’re too sick to be a donor, and once you receive a transplant, the cocktail of immunosuppressive drugs you’ll likely have to be on will knock you out of the donor pool, anyway.
People should subject doctors to stronger scrutiny than they do, let me say it that way.
However I feel about opt out I agree it’s impossible to argue a non donator should ever be ahead of a donator in the waiting line when it’s they that need parts.
I did mention this earlier.
In other words, we should cater to people’s deepest fears, let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and fix a bunch of huge problems before we try to fix a relatively simple one. Good meeting everybody- same time next week? 
Yes, the health care system is still badly screwed up and needs fixing. Opt-out organ donation isn’t being proposed as an alternative to other changes that need to be made. It’s being proposed as a very simple step to take that will help to address an important problem.
Of course.