But you will not be billed for it. I will pay for your medical care.
Who else are you suggesting should have the right to how my remains are disposed?
That’s right and as much as I don’t want that to happen, I am willing to allow that to happen, to protest a society that will force people to donate their organs contrary to their deeply held religious beliefs.
Do you consider an opt-out program to be one which will “force people to donate their organs contrary to their deeply held religious beliefs”?
Are you sure of that? It doesn’t work this way in any other european country I’m aware of. Non residents (who aren’t EU citizens) are typically billed for their medical expenses.
When I was a non-EU citizen hospitalised in Britain for 8 days I wasn’t billed for it.
No, I think Opt-Out is a great idea. Heck considering that we force women to come back again after 24 hours and AND receive counseling before they get an abortion in some states (and this is OK, because there is a life at stake and the state has an interest in life, etc…); I’d probably be OK with doing doing something like that for opting out.
Based on the notion that opting out might be the result of irrationality and lack of information, I would be OK with having you come back after 24 hours to opt out after you have had a consultation with somebody like to discuss all the facts before you decide to let your organs rot in the ground rather than give someone a second chance at life (there might be a few exceptions taht can be made here and there).
But in the end, I have to be able to tell everyone to go to hell and have my organs rot in the ground.
Yeah, same in France (there was a copay but Frenchmen had to pay the same copay, there wasn’t a special fee for being an American).
OK, just checking. Saved me the effort of arguing when we agree! 
I guess I’m not suggesting anyone has that right, but I question your right to make a choice that has no impact on you and causes harm to others. Or not so much question your right as…mulling over the morality of that? It’s a choice you can make but it’s one I’m extremely uncomfortable with. (And keep in mind I’m specifically talking about the choice to withdraw donorship based on the government “mandating” donation by having an opt-out program, not other elements of your posts).
But an opt-out program wouldn’t force people to donate organs contrary to people’s religious beliefs…if someone’s religious beliefs were such that organ donation was a no-no, they could, you know, opt out. Sign a little sticker and stick it on the back of their driver’s license or something.
Ok, good. I’m going to have to re-read this thread to see where opt-out became “mandatory donation” because I’m actually very confused about how that even came up!
Whole other thread, but wow…some states force that before an abortion procedure? My gut reaction is to strongly disapprove; I’m inclined to think if a woman is seeking it out in the first place, she probably knows what she’s looking to do, and why isn’t she allowed to make the choice for herself? Though I’ll have to think about it and what the implications/burdens are to the woman and whether it’s too much to ask. Curious…more thoughts to distract me from school work - yay!
I think such a system would be a colossal waste of time and money. People have their whole lives to decide about organ donation, and simply having the topic come up in the media, ad/fundraising campaigns, schools, etc. ought to be enough for people to understand what it is and what the implications are. If someone’s religion/ignorance/whatever is so strong that they want to opt-out, I doubt 24 hours will change their minds. Include a leaflet about the value of organ donations along with the opt-out sticker, and you’re done. The person can read it or not, and can always opt back in if they ever change their minds.
Honestly I’d prefer that organ donation simply be mandatory with no opt out. When you die, there is no more ‘you’ anymore. You are gone, obliterated, utterly and completely. That is not ‘your’ corpse, it’s just a hunk of dead flesh. Remove organs medically and with care so that the family has a decent looking corpse to display at an open casket funeral (if they’re into that sort of thing), but I can not countenance a family’s sentimentality for a dead thing above saving lives and drastically improving living people’s existence.
The living and those who exist come before the dead and those who no longer exist. For a while now we’ve had scare tactics about “the death tax”, let’s actually institute one. You owe your organs as tax, P.O.D.
*Of course *I recognize that this is utterly impossible to get passed as an actual policy, so I’d agree to opt-out with assumed consent, but dayum… our reverence for former-humans is an artifact of our past, and there’s no reason to treat a corpse with any more reverence than your toenail clippings. I’d even argue that using someone’s dead flesh to save lives and dramatically help people does much more to show respect for that person than letting them putrefy in a hole in the ground.
About half the states force a waiting period, to punish/discourage/humiliate women for wanting an abortion. Keep in mind that as well that “counseling” in this case typically means being forced to listen to anti-abortion fanatics, who are not legally bound to tell the truth or to refrain from insulting the woman. A recent law passed in that vein for an example.
Yeah, I’m OK with opt outs.
Some state recently instituted a THREE day waiting period.
Well aparently the waiting period and consultation is changing a few minds and some women are not getting abortions. I suspect that if you make the consultation include stories of little children that need your kideny to survive (withy pictures and everything), it might change a few minds.
South Dakota, it’s the story I linked to.
So would instituting mandatory beatings; that doesn’t make it a good idea. In either sense of the word “good”.
That’s kind of what I figured, and that is, to me, a disgusting tactic. But this isn’t the thread for it, and I don’t really want to continue the hijack beyond stating that, in theory, ensuring someone is fully informed of their choices and the possible consequences is a very good thing, but in practise…well, I know it doesn’t work that way, especially with issues like this!
I just don’t think it could ever be worth the cost of having consultants/counsellors on hand for this sort of thing. Brochures and literature available in general, as well as positive advertising for organ donation? Sure. Paying for consulting time to talk about it with a strongly religious person or someone else looking to opt out? There are better things to spend money on, is all.
In regard to organ donation: When I die, cut me open, take what you can use!
In regard to abortion waiting periods: Abortion is a decision that shouldn’t be undertaken lightly, it’s an irrevocable taking of a human life.
It’s not a “human life”, and it isn’t your business. And waiting periods punish women, especially poor women, who have to repeatedly find a way to get great distances just in order to be ritually tormented and humiliated because they want to control their own body. It’s an exercise in sadism and bigotry, nothing more.
This thread is not discussing abortion.
That hijack has just ended.
Open a new thread if that discussion is too dear to drop.
[ /Moderating ]
Larry Niven has an interesting take on mandatory organ donation in his short story The Jigsaw Man.
Personally, I’ve always signed the organ donation card that come with my drivers license. I’m not sure about opt-out donation, but if implemented, it should be worded so that you opted out of both donating AND receiving organs. I would be mad as hell to find that any part of my body ended up in a for-profit organ bank.
Spanish public hospitals don’t have a procedure to bill people. In France yes, there is a bill which you may recover completely or partially later (depending on your insurance setup), but not in Spain.
They wouldn’t even know how to bill you, if you got sick here. They’d refuse volunteer treatment, try to ship you home asap, try to bill your government… but in public hospitals and healthcare centers, there simply isn’t a procedure in place for billing the patient.
So you think a waiting period is bad for both abortion and organ donation opt out?
I’m not particularly bothered by either.