# Pros and cons of "presumed consent" organ donating **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 12, 2010, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-presumed-consent-organ-donating/539218 "2010-05-12T20:45:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-presumed-consent-organ-donating/539218/101 "2010-05-15T01:34:31Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > You’re claiming that it’s hard for the government to add checkboxes to forms. No, I’m pointing out that just because it’s not hard for the government to add checkboxes to forms doesn’t automatically mean that a mandatory-opt system will be convenient or effective. You’re trying to argue (without actually going to the trouble of backing it up with any data) that mandatory-opt will be effective without any major hassles or costs. You’ve given nobody any credible reason to believe that assertion. To respond to such reasonable objections to your unsupported assertions by saying “well, then **you** go find some statistics and prove that my unsupported assertions are wrong, nyah nyah!” is not a very impressive debating tactic. > [@begbert2](#): > > How the heck to you plan to reinforce something socially if nobody is aware of it and never thinks of it? ISTM that won’t be true at all that “nobody is aware of it and never thinks of it”. If we have an opt-out system, people know that their organs will be donated unless they explicitly specify otherwise. The fact that organ harvesting when we die is our society’s default option reinforces the idea that organ donation is a good thing and a social norm. > [@begbert2](#): > > This thread is about the pros and cons of opt-out. The pros are obvious and readily provable. My point is not that the cons necessarily outweight the pros - my point is that the cons exist. Really? The impression you’ve been giving all along here is that your point is that the cons are catastrophically unacceptable and reprehensibly immoral abuses of government power, and blatant infringements of what you persist in imagining to be legal property rights in corpses and corpse parts: > [@begbert2](#): > > You’re looting their graves, essentially […] > > […] these people own the corpse. It’s quite literally their property. By what logic do you have the right to come in and make use of somebody’s property over their express refusal to allow it? […] > > It’s sort of like if the government went in and stole all your family pictures […] > > […] the cons are that it turns the government into a grave robber […] > > […] requires us to throw out our morals with the bathwater […] > > […] totatlitarian and ideologically blinded […] And now you’re asking us to believe that you think these alleged immoralities that you’ve been so passionately rejecting might be outweighed by the practical advantages of an opt-out system? I have to say that it’s a little late in the day for you to start trying to sound reasonable and balanced on this issue. ISTM that that ship has sailed. > [@begbert2](#): > > Opt-out does disregard a chunk of the population’s wishes. Undoubtedly, but only if you define “wishes” to include “preferences that are so slight that the individuals in question never bother to override the default to make their preferences known.” Are you claiming that there’s a significant percent of the population that would have **strong** wishes against donation but would not actually opt out? I would want to see some actual factual evidence about the size of that alleged “chunk” before I agreed with you that that was a realistically significant problem. > [@begbert2](#): > > I’ve presented a fine coherent moral argument against the opt-out system and you know it. Well, it’s quite obvious that you’ve at least convinced **yourself** of this, even though you’ve apparently failed to convince anybody else. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-presumed-consent-organ-donating/539218/102 "2010-05-15T01:41:43Z")
I’m against it. Last time I got my driver’s license, I slipped up & had them put a donor symbol on my card. I’m not an organ donor, I intend to donate my body to science (not the same thing). If I could **just** donate my corneas, that’d be OK. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-presumed-consent-organ-donating/539218/103 "2010-05-17T18:04:20Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > No, I’m pointing out that just because it’s not hard for the government to add checkboxes to forms doesn’t automatically mean that a mandatory-opt system will be convenient or effective. > > You’re trying to argue (without actually going to the trouble of backing it up with any data) that mandatory-opt will be effective without any major hassles or costs. You’ve given nobody any credible reason to believe that assertion. > > To respond to such reasonable objections to your unsupported assertions by saying “well, then **you** go find some statistics and prove that my unsupported assertions are wrong, nyah nyah!” is not a very impressive debating tactic. These “reasonable objections” sound a lot like the problems that are expected to arise if gay marriage is legalized - you don’t know what they are and can’t say, but you insist nonetheless that mandatory-opt will be ineffective without major hassles or costs. Personally I _can’t imagine_ how that would be the case - but nonetheless you expect me to imagine what problems there might be anyway, and refute them. It is certainly the case that some semblance of forced-opt is already being implemented in some places; it has been mentioned in this thread. There may, or may not, already be statistics from these experiments available. I invite you to look, if you are so worried about your imaginary negative side effects. Unfortunately though, I do _not_ care about your imaginary negative side effects. I am aware that that gives people who are ideologically and dogmatically refusing to consider that opt-out might not be perfect a nail to hang their absurd claims of the weakness of forced-opt on, but frankly I don’t care enough about convincing the unconvincable to raise so much as a single finger to correct their baseless fears (which, as noted, by not yet be correctable yet anyway due to the lag in the expected effects of the policy.) Tilt at your own windmills if you like; I don’t care to. > [@Kimstu](#): > > ISTM that won’t be true at all that “nobody is aware of it and never thinks of it”. If we have an opt-out system, people know that their organs will be donated unless they explicitly specify otherwise. The fact that organ harvesting when we die is our society’s default option reinforces the idea that organ donation is a good thing and a social norm. In ANY system that happens silently and without active participation of the populace, the vast majority of the populace isn’t going to give it a second thought, because frankly they have better things to think about. This is OBVIOUSLY true. Your entire argument here is absurd and based on flatly and obviously incorrect assumptions about human psychology in order to pretend at a conclusion that simply isn’t true. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Really? The impression you’ve been giving all along here is that your point is that the cons are catastrophically unacceptable and reprehensibly immoral abuses of government power, and blatant infringements of what you persist in imagining to be legal property rights in corpses and corpse parts: > > And now you’re asking us to believe that you think these alleged immoralities that you’ve been so passionately rejecting might be outweighed by the practical advantages of an opt-out system? > > I have to say that it’s a little late in the day for you to start trying to sound reasonable and balanced on this issue. ISTM that that ship has sailed. The instant I stated an opinion in opposition to the one dogmatically held by the opt-out side, the ship had sailed on me sounding reasonable and balanced to them, because when the extreme position thinks it’s the center, the center looks extreme to them. In my opinion, the rational way to make a decision about something is to consider all the pros and cons, giving full weight to both. Sometimes this requires you to accept that there _are_ cons, and that sometimes there are cons to _every_ option. If this is the case, the right choice ceases to be _trivially_ obvious, but it remains possible to make a decision. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Undoubtedly, but only if you define “wishes” to include “preferences that are so slight that the individuals in question never bother to override the default to make their preferences known.” > > Are you claiming that there’s a significant percent of the population that would have **strong** wishes against donation but would not actually opt out? I would want to see some actual factual evidence about the size of that alleged “chunk” before I agreed with you that that was a realistically significant problem. Oh please, like you would **ever** admit that this is a ‘reasonably significant problem’, _regardless_ of any data I might find. Don’t bother trying to sound reasonable and balanced on this issue; that that ship has sailed. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, it’s quite obvious that you’ve at least convinced **yourself** of this, even though you’ve apparently failed to convince anybody else. Convinced myself that I’ve made coherent arguments on the subject of morality? I pity anyone who is _capable_ of reading this thread and thinking I haven’t done so. It’s one thing to be unconvinced that the downside of collecting from the unwilling outweighs the benefits of opt-out. That’s a position a reasonable person could rationally hold. It’s another to believe that it’s impossible for anybody to care about the disposition of their corpses, and thus to dismiss my argument on the basis of bad premises. A person making this argument would obviously have to have a spectacularly blindered and self-defined view of the world, but once you get past that the position is at least internally logical. Ish. But to claim that I have basically said nothing in this thread is clearly absurd and no person could rationally believe it. The lengths some people will go to to fallacously prop up an argument are staggering. Moreso because they’re unnecessary; opt-out can for be argued on its merits _without_ the rather desperate attempts to pretend it has no flaws. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-presumed-consent-organ-donating/539218/104 "2010-05-20T16:21:13Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I’m not an organ donor, I intend to donate my body to science (not the same thing). I told my wife to have them talk all the parts they can use right then, and then use the rest of me as they see fit. Take a leg to practice ankle surgeries, an arm to practice on the wrist, take my brain to bask in its splendid glory . . . Or if they can’t use the pieces just dump me in the body farm [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University\_of\_Tennessee\_Anthropological\_Research\_Facility](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Tennessee_Anthropological_Research_Facility) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-presumed-consent-organ-donating/539218.md?page=5)