Not quite. What I’m suggesting is more akin to saying “If you make a point of refusing to help the homeless, then it’s a bit rich to expect people to give you money if you’re homeless”.
Personally, I don’t see anything morally wrong with that.
I’m from the UK. There’s one about a ten minute walk from my house.
I’m sorry, but this is just crazy. Just because I support one measure to increase organ supply, you think I should support every conceivable measure as well? Why?
Read Thaler about the power of defaults. How easy it is has not much to do with it. Signing up for a 401K when you started work was easy also, but making it a default increased the participation rate a ton. But they found that making the minimum deduction the default reduced the amount contributed because people who took 6% as the normal amount chose the default, 4%, instead.
The statistics from Europe show that most people who aren’t donors by default would have no problem becoming donors if donation were the default. Since they aren’t harmed by donation, and lives are saved, that’s the obvious way to go.
And your images of mad surgeons chopping up people for profit just shows that you’ve watched way too many Frankenstein movies.
Some people have religious qualms about donating. Stupid, for sure, but if that is an issue you’re going to have a shitstorm on your hands.
If donating would become the default we’d have plenty of potential donors and no reason to restrict choice. So I’m pro-choice in this, even though I’ve opted in.
Those people can and should opt out. Their faith communities should get involved in this and make sure all the community members know that their interpretation of the faith forbids organ donation, and know what to do in order to opt out of it.
The rest of us can stay in the donor pool, hoping that our organs will not become available until they’re too old and worn-out to be any use, but recognizing that if we do unfortunately end up in an organ-donor situation then we’d want some other person(s) to be able to benefit from that.
<ETA: Never mind, I thought I was on the last page of the thread, and wasn’t, so my comment doesn’t make any sense in the current context.>
Penalizing opting out would be a problem because of the religious issue.
And it is a good time to link to what Dr. John Prine says about this issue:
My sentiments exactly, except that my ears don’t flap. But I do agree that they should give my knees to the needy.
People opting out for religious reasons would be just as opposed to receiving donated organs as they are to donating organs.
They can still opt in, even if their organs turn out to be not actually usable.
I frankly don’t give a shit if someone opts out for religious reasons, because the idea squicks them out or because the full moon is on Capricorn retrograde with Aquarius on a field of pink unicorns. It’s their right to choose what to do. There’s societies which have decided that donation is the default, others that have decided you need papers, some where the opinions of relatives are taken into account absent paperwork, others where if it’s not in writing it doesn’t matter what anybody says. Ideally? Ideally there would be no opting either way because donations wouldn’t be needed… ideally, I want my flying car and my teleporter.
Changes to technology mean that people who didn’t use to be eligible now are; sometimes, for organs which weren’t transplantable just a couple of decades ago. As an old song says, “science advances so quickly it is totally barbaric”. Many people who would have been eligible if they’d died in a car crash end up not being because of the circumstances of their death: which organs will or will not be eligible when any of us dies is not something that can be determined the minute we sign up. So, anybody who wants to sign up should just sign up and eventually Lady Luck will throw the dice, like she does for all of us.
Color me skeptical on that point, too.
It’s not enough to just be dead, a prospective organ donor needs to have died in a manner that leaves their organs intact will killing the person. They also need to be found soon enough that their body can be effectively put on life support until their organs can be harvested. That’s a small minority of deaths right there.
THEN you have to match donor with recipient. It is entirely possible that you could have a viable organ that matches no needy would-be recipient.
So yes, going to opt-out will make for a shorter waiting list, but you’ll still have a waiting list and you’ll still have some people dying before a match can be found.
The comments in this thread are more melodramatic than the reality.
The purpose of opt-out is to increase the discussion and likelihood of donation. But in practice, nothing would be likely be taken without readdressing the point with the patient before dying, if possible. (You are currently listed as an organ donor. Is that something you are still interested in?). It would also likely be readdressed with the family, ideally before death, but afterwards as well. (Mr. Slartibartfast expressed a wish to donate his eyes. We will honour his wish unless the family have any objections).
Patients and families can make any decision they want, and change their minds at any time, for any reason. But they can also receive a significant amount of closure and satisfaction from a donation, and this can give comfort in what are sometimes distressing circumstances.
And now it’ll be the opposite – do you wish NOT to be an organ donor?
See, easy peasy!
Does anyone know if, in the UK system actually under discussion, there needs to be an actual decision made? I’m in the UK and renew my license every ten years, so I’m not sure that’s a viable time to ask the question.
I suspect that it is that the assumption will be that you will donate unless you have taken the effort to specifically Opt Out. Perhaps you can get a card for your wallet.
All to the good in my opinion, although I wouldn’t be behind any scheme that denied organs to people who had opted out.
@Teuton: your questions answered:
So, as I suspected, if there is no record of a choice you have “deemed consent” given.
While I 100% support making organ donation opt-out, and am an organ donor myself, I’m also 100% against any sorta “scheme” to punish non-donors.
That’s pretty much the definition of “opt out.”
It is, and it’s how I expected it to work (and how I want it to work, lest there be any doubt), but earlier talk in the thread was about regularly asking you on a driving license form or similar, and not acting on it if you never got asked.
Why stop with organs? Why not mandate annual blood donation too? Don’t donate blood? Go to the end of the list if you need a transfusion.
Not a good idea, punishing non-donors.