The person who is donating is dead, and so can’t benefit very much.
Why don’t you like opt-out systems? They just make laziness work for the good of society, not the opposite. They also signal to people which course is favored by society, but that is very reasonable in this case.
I’m against paying since an opt-out system would provide enough organs without getting into the murky territory of paying for flesh.
I was.
Okay, but give me a reason why. “That’s the way it is” is a terrible reason.
If paying for organs would result in more sick people getting organs they need, I’m having trouble understanding the downside. I understand there can be problems inherent in it, but then, that’s true of buying and selling anything and is why we have laws, cops and courts. I’d rather have a kidney available for my sick relative and deal with the possibility of corruption than just let people die and sleep well knowing hey, at least nobody’s profiting!
The reason is that donation is a one-way street. If someone cons a person out of his money, he can get it back. If a person is conned out a kidney, that kidney is gone forever. Putting the con artist in jail doesn’t get the kidney back. Plus, there are risks involved with donation, risks better assessed by the potential donor if money is not involved.
And please, don’t even try to say the threat of jail will keep people from being crooked, or that every person will absolutely and rationally consider the options. The mortgage melt down and the crime rate are counterexamples to this.
That was in reference to living donors. But it doesn’t much change for the dead. If we’re to assume that the corpse has no particular special status as some have suggested, it should be treated as property and become part of the deceased’s estate. The people who the deceased left behind could certainly benefit.
Two reasons. First, they depend not just on laziness but ignorance as well. It screws people who aren’t aware of the policy and at the same time reduces the incentives on the part of the government to advertise the system and make it convenient to opt-out. Second, it’s another way of trying to get around what I see as the key issue here. Organs are valuable. If “society” wants them, it should pay for them.
One method I like is the proposal to move people who have agreed to donate their organs up a bit in the line to receive an organ if they need one.
Under this system, if all other things are equal, someone who signed their donor card has preference over someone who has not, in receiving the next available matched organ.
This idea came from a transplant surgeon who was rather put out to discover many patients on the organ recipient waiting list who were not willing to donate their own organs.
No payment. Opt-out system.
And I absolutely agree that you should not be able to receive an organ if you aren’t a donor.
If you can’t be bothered to educate yourself on this well-known issue and/or to fill out a little card (or whatever) to get off the list, then obviously it doesn’t matter that much to you. Since (some of) the rest of us need organs and you don’t care, then we get them.
OTOH, here in the USA where we’re currently opt-in, I would expect a massive information campaign initially, to be sure that everyone understood the new system and how to opt out.
I’m not in favor of payment for organs because we have enough problems with black-markets and VIPs mysteriously getting to the tops of the lists without starting a payoff system to encourage it.
QtM, yeah, I remember seeing an article a few years back about animal rights protesters throwing fits over some transplant part that was being grown in pigs (? I think it was pigs). Because you know, the animals were being horribly abused. Someone went out and canvassed the protesters. I think less than 10% were organ donors. It was pointed out that if we had more organ donors, we wouldn’t need as many pigs.
My apologies. I missed that part.
This system used to exist in France, but in fact it was never applied. Doctors wouldn’t harvest organs without the family agreement.
In fact, I’ve heard that nowadays, they sometimes don’t harvest organs from registered donors when facing the hostility of the family. Don’t know to what extent it is true, nor how common it could be.
In any case, it seems that the medical body is generally reluctant to ignore family’s will. At least over here.
Talking about the government is a bit of a red herring. Besides setting the rules, the government isn’t involved at all in this transaction between the donor and the potential donee. If you look at the countries in Europe which opt in or opt out, there is no real political distinction.
I suspect most of the people who choose neither just don’t care in this case. Thus, I doubt they are getting screwed in any way by the default of donating. I can imagine someone upset by the prospect - but if that were the case, they could easily opt out. I can imagine opposition for religious reasons, but the churches are perfectly capable of providing their members with opt-out forms. Most people don’t give a shit. In a opt-in system, the laziness and/or ignorance of people leads to those who might be saved dying. Is the fact that someone who might have decided to not donate if only he got around to it but did donate an equal problem? The first priority is enabling those who wish to choose to do so, so I’m against mandatory donations.
We also know that an opt-in system can go against people’s obvious self-interest, as in the 401K situation.
Is there a time before wish they were supposed to agree to donate? What’s to keep someone from signing up at the first sign of trouble?
What if I am ok with donating most of my organs, but like many people have a problem with someone cutting out my corneas?
Why would family members to the use of a deceased organs? Any regions other than religious?
edit:
Why would family members object to the use of a deceased person’s organs? Any regions other than religious?
Oh dear. I know I replied to this thread. I hope it didn’t end up in the Worst Clothing Item Ever thread instead!
Upshot of my disappeared post: I’m absolutely a supporter of opt-out instead of opt-in, but I do think people who have medical conditions or are on medications which preclude them from organ donation should still be allowed to be on the transplant list. Not their fault they’re already too sick to donate an organ.
Religious opt-outs, however, I think should not be allowed to receive. If g-d wants to make sure you have all *your *bits and pieces in your grave, surely It would be annoyed if the kidneys don’t match. So we’ll help you be consistent and not saddle you with someone else’s kidney. You’re welcome.
Borzo, the most common reason I hear people refuse organ donation is the misguided notion that we’re going to let someone die of things we could treat if we hear they’re an organ donor, so we can start rooting around in there and harvesting practically before their last breath. It’s total bullshit, of course, but it’s a common fear.
I object to organ brokers making hundreds of thousands of dollars in “processing fees” from of my corpse without my estate benefiting.
The Body Brokers: Part 1- Assembly Line
The Body Brokers - Part 2: Skin Merchants
The Body Brokers — Part 3: Researchers
In the first case, I can’t sell you my kidney the way I can sell you a bicycle. It has to go through a hospital. Have a state-run agency to broker these exchanges. Doctors and clinics will be involved.
In the second, I don’t get it. Of course there are risks. You have doctors explain them. Money being involved doesn’t make you incapable of listening to a doctor. Does it change the equation? Yes, that’s the point.
I very much like the idea of opt-out, but if opt-out can’t be implemented then one thing I would very much like to see is for opt-in to be **irrevocable **once the person is no longer capable of making their own decisions. Assuming my will is valid and any statutory requirements are met in terms of beneficiaries, the bequests in my will can’t be changed after I die even if my next of kin don’t agree. Why should it be any different for opting in to organ donation?
(My comment is based on what I’ve heard many times that in at least some jurisdictions next of kin can over-rule an organ donor card, however I have no cites, so I may be misremembering).
I don’t think I’ve really heard of any reasons that aren’t religious. I’m reminded of the case of Jason Ray, a UNC cheerleader who was hit and killed by a car and who had made the decision to be an organ donor, against his parents’ initial wishes:
Jason Ray and his family were Christians, not Orthodox Jews, so this thought that organs ought to accompany the earthly body to the grave extends beyond the most well-known religious groups for whom it is doctrine.
As for myself, although I’m Jewish I strongly disagree with the Orthodox on this topic (well, I disagree with them on a few things, but on this especially). I still recognize that it’s their decision to make, however. Organ donation on the whole, I feel, is being de-stigmatized pretty effectively in the U.S.A., and many of the old religious prejudices against it are losing steam. But I feel that each person should have the right to decide for themselves how they feel on this issue, and it isn’t something that anyone ought to be bribed or mandated into doing. If refusing organ donation is indeed “wrong”, then it should be judged that way by everyone - including the Orthodox Jews and anyone else who currently has a spiritual conflict with it.
Good point, and I object to it as well. That’s one reason why I’d like to see opt-out programs. The number of people healthy enough to donate organs that die each day surely exceeds the waiting lists. If supply exceeds demand, these sort of shady dealings will have little traction, I think.