Money quote.
Just catching up on this thread after work…
Re: The argument put forth that people should be able to decide to whom their harvested organs will go.
IMO, once you sign that donor card and agree to donate your organs, upon your death, they cease to be yours. How in the world, as a dead person, could you possibly care who gets to use your organs.
Organ transplants are tricky business. A person who is extremely unhealthy is not a candidate, and this includes the guy who’s been up drinking for hours before surgery. They make you quit your vice, and give you a second chance if you do well. What an extremely tolerant and forgiving way too look at things. It’s like saying, we know you’ve screwed up in the past but we’re willing to give you another chance. Very FEW people will fuck up this second chance.
You’re dead. You don’t live on through the people you donate to, so your morality or judgement has no place here. It’s a SELFLESS gift of life, you great big putz. Get off the high horse.
So, using your “I’m dead, what do I care” philosophy, why should I care if a child who needs my organs lives or dies? ** I’m dead!**
Are you seriously equating your body parts rotting away in the ground to a child dying?
I’m seriously equating the “I’m dead, what do I care” philosophy to a lousy argument that can just as easily justify not donating.
What gets me is the sense of entitlement expressed in the OP. If nothing else, we own our body, and should decide how it is disposed of.
If someone is willing to give, that is his option, but if they don’t chose this option they should be not be looked down upon. Giving is ultimatly an individual decision, and one should not be forced or shamed into giving.
This is sort of like the comment that the US is ‘stingy’ w/ tidal wave (sorry it fits better then 'harbor wave, which is what that T word means, and is easier to spell) funds. It is not for ANYONE to critisize what anyone gives, doing so just demeans yourself.
Yes. I don’t care how easy those hoops are to jump through because the default assumption by the government should not be “he wants to donate his organs.”
This really isn’t about what I want to happen to my organs after I pass away. I’m a donor myself and we donated the parts of my father that were harvestable after his death. I’m all for organ donation as I certainly don’t need them when I’m dead. What I object to is the default position that the government, the medical community, or society in general own someone’s body after death.
Marc
If it were ‘property’ that were ‘owned’ like other property is, wouldn’t we be able to sell it?
I agree with that. Of course, I’m also a nut who believes that graves themselves are a waste of space and don’t want to have one at all when I die. Cremation and disposal of the ashes.
So would the person who gets a liver transplant have to just never, ever drink again or not be ‘an alcoholic’? What definition of ‘alcoholic’ do you go by?
What chaps my ass is that momsix and dadsix are opposed to organ donation and should I die with one of them as my next of kin, my wishes will be ignored because they have the legal right to override the words ‘ORGAN DONOR’ emblazoned on my driver’s license.
The Hippocratic oath?
The problems with relatives overriding organ donation would be helped if we made the decision to donate more of a contract situation, and drew up legally binding documents between the individual and the state wherein the individual could will their organs to the hospital after death. You could write it in such a way that anyone who interfered with the donation would be sued by the state for not respecting the donor’s wishes. Relatives wouldn’t be so quick to deny organs if they knew they could be sued. Is there anyone that would object to that plan?
I certainly wouldn’t. The main objection I have to the current system is that it’s so damned difficult to make sure that your organs will have a good home when you’re gone. Frankly, I think it should be easy, which is why I think the opt-out system is the way to go. In the interim, though, making a donor’s decision binding would certainly help.
Heck, why not give tax credits to organ donors? A lot of the arguments here is that your body is your property… but it’s property you can’t really sell. How about if you get a tax credit? Would that inspire people to altruism?
[SUB]It’s actually pretty sad that people have to be convinced to donate organs, if you ask me. Kinda says something about the world and the people in it.[/SUB]
My feelings on organ donation:
I am somewhat uncomfortable with the entire concept, mainly because of my very strong belief that a person’s body is just as much a part of them as their soul, and doesn’t cease to be so after their death. I feel that taking a part of a man’s body and putting it in another man’s is a sufficiently grave act that it should definitely be opt-in, with a person specifically requesting that it be done. I am marked as an organ donor, even though I have serious concerns about how the system is operated today, but I would never accept a donated organ for myself.
A dead person has no rights and cannot own property. A dead p[erson is no longer a person at all.
I think organ harvest should be automatic and fuck anyone’s ignorant, backwards superstitions about it.
I strongly disagree. A dead person is still a person, just temporarily unable to directly communicate with or affect the physical world. That doesn’t mean it’s ok to rip out parts of their body without their consent, any more than it would be to do so to a living person.
“Temporarily?” 
:dubious:
When will they be able to communicate again?
There is no “they.” There is nothing to give consent. That person doesn’t exist anymore. It’s ridiculous to let other people- real people- die so we can honor the “rights” of a slab of meat.
My previous post was mostly in jest, but really, don’t you think that taking the consent away from a person would open the door to, shall we say, less than the BEST efforts at preserving life BEFORE they die?
You know, depending upon how “valuable” they are? Like you, I don’t care once I’m gone.
But my concern is that it being an automatic thing could lead to potental abuses in the medical community.
Are you worried that doctors are going to start harvesting organs before a person is dead or that they’ll let a person dies so they can get the organs?
Why would they?
I just don’t see medical teams engaging in conspiracies to acquire organs.
And it’s not taking consent away from anybody. No living person has to donate anything. Once a person is dead they don’t exist anymore.
Plenty of people disagree, and would see a forcible harvesting of organs as a theft, at best. You may argue that one has a moral necessity to donate organs if able, but that doesn’t then give you the right to commit an immoral act to force one to commit this moral act.
If, as you say, upon death personhood ceases, would you have any objection to me coming by your house after your death and taking those of your personal possessions that I deemed attractive? Surely they are now unowned and free for the taking, since you don’t exist anymore.
Strawman. A posession like a stereo or a ring still has value after the death of the original owner. They retain this value almost indefinitely, as they can last for many years.
Body parts are just garbage once you’ve been dead for long enough. Organs in a coffin = garbage. Transplanted organs = valuables.
No, not that they’d try to start harvesting before the person died, more that the same efforts to save people wouldn’t be applied across the board, depending upon a person’s “station in life” so to speak. For instance my previous example of the homeless person.
And as to “medical teams engaging in conspiracy” well, we’ve seen people in our society capable of much worse. I wouldn’t say it would be a given, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Not that I think there’d be roaming packs of organ stealers or anything like that. But just the fact that it wasn’t a voluntary thing could open the door for the potential for that sort of abuse.
Look at the cases of “angels of death” that have been caught only after years of commiting their crimes. I don’t know, just because they’re doctors they’re above the normal human evil and greed? I am not saying that the system doesn’t need to be made much better, but I don’t agree with making it automatic and involuntary. As in, the second you die, you have no rights.
Slab of meat? That’s not a cow for the slaughter laying there, it’s someone’s grandmother, or child. More respect than that is required imho.
People can “disagree” all they want but the government has no obligation to humor suoperstitious fantasies.There’s nothing immoral about harvesting viable organs to save a life. There is no victim there is only a life saved. A corpse is not a person. Period.
My personal possessions would belong to my wife but you can have my body if you want it.