You seem to be very much against the “Opt Out” program, begbert2… how do you feel about giving donors preferential placement on the recipient list?
Since he and I share the same qualms about the program, can I offer my answer also? I promised it won’t take long. 
I think it’s a disgusting idea.
It’s vengeance by vicious organ donors who feel that, since they can’t make any reasonable arguments for why they should be allowed to steal people’s organs, hope that they can instead compel such resisters into falling in line with threats, specifically the threat that they will be denied the opportunity to get, through fair and honest channels, a willingly donated organ if they should happen to need one.
Basically, it’s “fall in line or we’ll maybe kill you.” As has been noted, disgusting and reprehensible.
I agree with the moral position stated here.
By the way, how much overlap is there between potential organ recipients, and potential organ donors? I believe that there are a number of tissues that can be transplanted easily, regardless of the physical condition of the donor, e.g. skin or cornea. But they are the minority, and that most organs from a potential recipient aren’t going to be suitable for an organ donation.
If I’m correct on this (and I may well be mistaken) it would seem that it’s a step that would have no pragmatic purpose to match the moral vileness of the tactic.
As for the OP’s claim that those of us against this policy are raising impossible scenarios when we talk about having organs taken - I’d like to see the OP address the scenario I’d mentioned in my earlier post: ER personnel simply ‘losing’ contact information for the next of kin until the organ donation is a done deal. Does the OP really believe this could never happen?
FTM, suppose Chowder were in a tragic accident, where his ID were lost, as well as suffering a brain destroying injury. Here we have someone who has made clear his opposition to organ donation, but through no fault of his own, even though he presumably did everything to opt out, is going to be at risk for harvesting, because his opt-out card is missing.
Finally, at the risk of derailing this thread completely, let me ask: Would anyone else like to see medical ethicists review the current ban on the sale of human tissue for medical purposes? I can see two potential benefits from such a decision: it would be to likely increase the supply; it would also greatly reduce the temptation for post-mortem tissue theft to occur again, in the manner of the recent ring broken up in the US.
I know it’s a touchy subject, for fear of exploitation of the poor. And it may well be that the benefits won’t outweigh the social cost. I still believe it’s worth re-examining our assumptions and conclusions in light of current circumstances.
Oh, one more nasty question for the OP. Does the OP have any views about the people charged with stealing tissue from cadavers cosigned for burial? After all, the tissues were often used to improve the health of other peoples. It’s not like the people whose tissues were taken had any further use for them, after all.
Good question about the priority issue. But some people have thought about this before.
Funny, I thought it was, “You’ve shown yourself willing to help others, so if you get into a bad situation, others will help you.”
Doesn’t seem too disgusting or reprehensible to me.
You thought wrong, because the proposal would deny people medical care based on a moral judgment. Medical care is a basic right, and should never be doled out according to a reward system.
So you think that people should be able to take advantage of a medical procedure they, themselves, don’t support? How is that not hypocritical?
You live in the US and think “medical care is a basic right”? Good luck getting that one by the billing office.
The government has the right once you’ve been dead a hundred years to take that same body, dig it up,and move it wherever it wants to, doesn’t it?
The Tapping American Organ Reserves Act comes into force this summer, I believe.
That’s a good point. However, I would imagine that those who have strong objections to either organ donation on their part or the general matter on principle would indeed hear about it. It’s the ambivalents who won’t, and even then all their family has to do is say no.
If this was a matter of land property or money, then i’d agree. You can leave those to your family and they will benefit from them, and that’s fair. But who benefits from the property of your body? Unless your family intends to sell your organs after death, or have idealogical/emotional reasons for keeping it intact, they gain no benefit from having your organs. You’ll get buried or cremated; it’s a value that, in most cases, will simply be thrown away. If it was the case that on death most people set down in their wills to burn 100% of their assets, I would have significantly less problem with a law approprating those assets if your family’s permission is gained.
Normally also I would agree with the notion that those who choose to opt-in should do the work, I am willing and indeed happy to mean it is those who want to opt-out who do the work, with the benefit in mind of getting that ambivalent and apathetic on board. It’s certainly a minor evil, but with a much greater good.
Your assets have value and are useful to your heirs. Your remains are no more than medical waste. You have no more right to complain about being deprived of them than a child who had his tonsils taken out. They haven’t let kids take them home since when, 1980?
So you’re saying that if you’re not a doctor yourself you shouldn’t be able to take advantage of doctors in general? Fine, you do that. The rest of us recognize that by paying for our medical treatments, we are supporting the medical procedures in our own way.
Deprioritizing non-donors is punitive and vile, clear and simple.
I’ve made a similar argument to that too. However, while those organs may have no physical value (unless they tend to sell them) they (or rather, your body intact) may have emotional or religious value. I think the lack of value is enough to counter the “I own them, I can do what I want with them” argument, but not enough that the family’s wishes should necessarily be dismissed.
So where do these organs you feel you deserve come from?
In my mind, by agreeing to donate your organs upon your death you ARE paying for the privilege of receiving organs, should you need them. By not agreeing to donate your organs, but still insisting that you, for some reason, *deserve *them should you need them, you’re being selfish and a drain on the entire system. All the money in the world won’t grow new organs (at least not yet- when we get organ cloning, then you can keep your damn liver and still expect one if you need it).
If you want to take advantage of the system, pay your own way. Money helps, but it doesn’t put a pair of lungs on the table.
I don’t care one bit if it’s hypocritical. You don’t have to earn the right to medical care when you need it, it’s that simple. Should you have to go to the back of the line for blood donations if you don’t give blood? There’s a shortage of that too. What about bone marrow? Since when does society or the government get to rule on who deserves medical treatment? This idea wouldn’t even put those decisions in the hands of doctors, it’d be in the hands of a bureaucratic rewards system. I think your life is worth the same amount even if you decide you don’t want to donate your organs; I don’t think we have to earn value by pleasing society by making the “right” decision.
Since when? If I sign a contract with the cemetery that says I’m only buying the plot for 100 years, maybe, but that’s the terms of the contract I signed. I don’t recall signing any contract that says society is entitled to use my body parts after I die. I’ve never even heard anybody suggest that’s part of the old “social contract” before.
Whatever that is, I hope you’re kidding (as the smiley seems to indicate). If not, organ thieves will likely plunder my body.
That’s a very convient imagination you have; I had no idea that information automatically gravitated to those who cared, independent of their social network or information resources.
Congratuations, you don’t care if your body gets cut up and given away/sold off. That’s your opinion. In my opinion you don’t have a right to somebody else’s lung or other possessions, even if they’re dead. Even if they don’t need them, and even if they fail to pin a “do not loot” sign to their chests. Welcome to the land of “other people have different opinons than you”. Since when should I think that your opinion matters more than mine?
Organ theft and corpse descration are “minor evils” now, eh? Well, I suppose any problem is minor when it’s not your problem.
If you had bothered to read the link the OP posed, you would have seen that the new proposal specifies that the donation would proceed only “as long as the family were in agreement.” In other words, if Chowder turns up brain-dead, with or without his opt-out card, the doctors must still contact his family and get their permission.
The real question is, if Chowder turns up brain-dead without his opt-out card, and his family says “yeah, take anything you need”, what is the mechanism for ensuring Chowder’s wishes are respected?
JRB
Well, suppose you die without a will. What happens to your estate? It is distributed according to law. Your spouse first, then your kids, then your parents, then your siblings, then whoever. All written down in a law somewhere. If you don’t want your assets divided up according to this law, you have to “opt out” of probate law, by drawing up a will. If you die with a surviving spouse and no will, the spouse gets everything. If you have kids from a previous marriage, they get nothing. So if you don’t want your trophy wife to get everything, you’ve got to have a will specifying that the trophy wife gets $10 and other good and valuable considerations and the kids get X, Y and Z.
Opt out is exactly how we handle other situations where the person in question is not able to make their wishes known. If the paramedics pull you out of a car and you’re unconscious, they’ll take you to a hospital and start treating you, regardless of what your wishes may or may not be. Our presumption is that a reasonable person would consent to medical treatment. If you don’t wish to give implied consent to medical treatment when unconscious, you’ve got to take affirmative steps to make sure the doctors won’t give you a blood transfusion when you’re out cold. And even if you have a living will that specifies that certain medical treatments should not be performed, in an emergency the doctors don’t first look up your lawyer to see if you’ve got a living will, they start treatment immediately and only after the dust settles do they check to see if you’ve got a living will, or next of kin who can consent for you.
Now, should our standard be that only conscious people can consent to medical treatment, and if you’re unconscious the presumption should be that you would refuse medical treatment? Or should our presumption be that you would consent to medical treatment? The fact that we presume consent to medical treatment, or that we give the entire estate to the spouse doesn’t mean that the state considers you a slave, and feels entitled to make decisions for you. It simply presumes certain things that are very likely to be true, and if they aren’t true the burden is on the individual to make sure that they aren’t presumed true. And since the individual is, well, dead, you’ve got to make those wishes known ahead of time. And if you didn’t give any thought to what would happen to your affairs after you’re dead, and didn’t bother making those wishes known in any sort of legally binding way, then once you’re dead or incapacitated the rest of us are obligated to make those decisions for you.
Note that we can’t pass it off and refuse to decide, we’ve GOT to decide. If you’re unconscious and we don’t decide that you’d probably consent to life saving treatment, then well, you’re going to die. If you’re dead without a will, something has to happen to your assets. Even leaving everything you own as it was at the moment of your death for all eternity is making a decision about what should happen to those things, one you didn’t make.
No, i’m serious. It’s been debated in the Commons for a while now. Apparently the approved method is just for the Royal Navy to sit off the U.S. coast with very long lassoes.
It doesn’t. But generally when people hold a strong opinion on something they do rather tend to learn about it and indeed spread it to others. Particularly in cases such as this, where people hold strong opinions both ways, it’s the kind of thing that will both be taken up in the mainstream media (as shown by the OP) and by groups who would strongly prefer one way or the other. I would imagine also that a person who holds such a strong opinion would possibly make it known to their family. I’m not entirely certain how much imagination I require in order to say that people with strong opinions on a topic will learn about that topic and tell their family, but I would have guessed not too much of one.
I don’t recall saying you should. I’ve just posted why I disagree with your points in this thread, just as you have posted disagreeing with others’ posts. This is GD, after all; pardon me for assuming that giving an argument was acceptable in the forum based around arguing when you yourself have already joined in.
If we’re going to take the emotionally charged route, I could suggest that your uncaring attitude towards those with leukaemia and the like was clearly something you see as minor as not your problem. But that wouldn’t accomplish much.
You are free to opt-out. You can, in fact, choose not to opt-out, and instead take on the incredibly arduous task of laboriously talking to your family about your wishes, and thereby ensure no theft and no desecration. Like i’ve said; I am sorry that you must take upon yourself the great and horrendous evil of having a conversation on a topic you feel strongly about. I happen to feel that getting organs for those who need them ranks a wee bit higher than the vast, unrelenting agony of a) the breaking of a principle that can be b) avoided by saying eight words to a family member. I am, of course, a madman.