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.
Too late to edit the post :
I found very easily the infos. Legally you’re still presumed to consent to organ donation if you didn’t explicitely oppose it. Even though there’s apparently no clearly identified way to record your opposition. On the other hand, there’s a clear way to record your agreement : getting and filling a donor card. Which doesn’t matter since it won’t be taken into account anyway, even if the doctors somehow know about it. As I wrote above, barring peculiar circumstances, what you wanted or not will be unknown or ignored in practice and your relatives will decide.
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.
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”.
Once you’ve decided that non-donors should be left to die for their “selfishness”, you’ve pretty much given up on that precept anyway.
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.
Why should people who refuse to be organ donors be eligible to receive organs from others? Why should someone demand that others do for them what they are not willing to do for others?
Should it be possible for individuals to say that they agree to be organ donors as long as the organ recipient has also agreed to be an organ donor?
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.
That was the argument given above as to why I shouldn’t worry that doctors would let me die so they could have my organs. If you’re going to insist on that sentiment in one instance, it’s hypocritical of you to then turn around and append to it “unless they’re not organ donors”.
Secondly, organ donation is just that - a donation - i.e., a gift given without expectation of payment or recompense. If we’re now making donor status mandatory for receipt of donor organs, then it’s no longer a donation, but a mandatory-in-all-but-name sale of one’s organs in exchange for medical treatment. As I said above, if this is the tack you want to take, you really need to stop calling it “organ donation” and start calling it “compulsory organ harvesting”, because that’s what it is.
No, for the same reason that it’s not possible for someone to agree to be an organ donor, as long as the organ recipient isn’t black.
Nope, I don’t think all of that was so long ago. The Tuskegee thing didn’t end until 1972. I refer you to this New York Times article discussing the survivors of the men in the experiment, women infected by untreated husbands and children born with syphillis who only contracted it because their fathers were untreated as part of some “study” they weren’t even aware they were part of. These people are still alive. This is NOT the past.
The attitudes that led to such exploitation have not disappeared, even if they might be less common than they once were.
So, if the “net gain to society is still overwhelmingly positive” you wouldn’t be opposed to being obliged to give up a kidney while you’re still alive? If the “net gain to society is still overwhelmingly positive” slavery would be OK?
Doctors have been known to kill people for less savory reasons than saving other lives. Granted, criminal doctors aren’t particularly common but they do exist.
The last person burned at the stake was a couple centuries ago.
The last survivor of the Tuskee Experiment died in 2004 and the children of those men, some of whom were needlessly born with syphillis, are still very much alive.
Yes, it’s a thing. Your family has veto power over your organ donation wishes as soon as you are dead.
Unless you can point to the individual article among the bajillion in that link that is relevant to organ donation rather than dental malpractice I’m not bothering to wade through a google search result.
I repeat: “You’re the only one who thinks the precise definition of “donation” is important to this discussion.” That means I don’t think this is important. For that matter you’ve already called organ donation seizing one’s body and chopping it up into bits to serve the common weal and a poster who agreed with you called it “mutilating a corpse against the wishes of the family or former human being.” Like I said earlier, that kind of language is common in these debates from people who oppose opt-out systems even though logically all posthumous organ donation is ‘seizing a body and chopping it into bits’ and ‘mutilating a corpse.’ Since you resorted to that kind of pointless and loaded language, I no longer care what you think is the correct term. See how that works?
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. It just goes to show that the only reason the term is used at all is for PR purposes.
It has been proposed by several people upthread that organ donation should both be assumed by default, and that people who have opted out of being organ donors should be allowed to die rather than receive an organ transplant.
I find the term “compulsory organ harvest” to be more factually descriptive of the proposed scheme than “organ donation”.