Organ donation is a great social good. Many people decline to become organ donors, however, because of religious concerns (“I won’t have my liver in Heaven!”) or specious safety concerns (“They’ll let me die in the OR to get their hands on my kidneys!”)
Because these decisions are being made for very poor reasons, and there is in fact no socially cognizable good reason to refuse to donate your organs, the decision should be taken out of the hands of people. Organ donation should be mandated, assumed by law. At the very least, it should be the default assumption, and someone who wishes NOT to be an organ donor should have to take affirmative steps to make that known, rather than the reverse presumption that the default state is no organ donation absent an explicitly announced intention to donate.
Or so says a colleague of mine.
I am interested in the debate; I have a view, but it’s not a particularly solid one.
On the one hand, I like the idea of making it the “default assumption” that you want your organs donated. On the other hand, I can foresee it leading to a lot of court cases and unpleasantness when the doctors pop out the deceaseds kidneys and then the family shows up and says that that was against either theirs or the deceaseds wishes. In the case where the donor has made an explicit statement that they want to donate that seems like it would be less of an issue, but assuming that they wanted to donate if they didn’t indicate otherwise seems like it would leave a lot more for people to fight about after the fact.
I’d like to know what definition of “dead” your colleague is using. Organ harvesting is preferred from brain-dead donors, not those who are dead in the traditional heart-has-stopped sense. And this can be a problem, as the New England Journal of medicine has had doctors criticizing hospitals for declaring brain death too soon after removing both adult and infant patients from life support or “cardiac death”; too soon being just over a minute in some cases.
Do it the way your colleague wants and we’ll have a divide in this country as sharp as the one for the death penalty: pro-organ harvesting folks will declare it everyone’s duty, and the anti folks will trot out arguments similar to the ones anti-death penalty folks us about one innocent man, but this time about one live person mistakenly put to death when they really had a chance.
Mark me as against. It’s fine to do a campaign to encourage more people to donate their organs, but it should never be mandatory.
Strangely, I was much more militantly pro-donating and thinking it should be at least the default position, requiring opting out rather than opting in until it came up in my life.
I didn’t hesitate to do it, but now I understand why people get confused and baffled and make the wrong (in my opinion) decision. It’s hard. You’re getting asked questions when you’re trying to deal with the shock. I was on the phone for at least an hour at two o’clock in the morning talking to the organization, trying to remember all of Steve’s medical history off the top of my head.
The nurse said, "He’s listed as an organ donor, but… " as if refusals at that point were more common than not. It would have been so easy to say no, since I wouldn’t have had paperwork or extra conversations or been pestered at my mom’s house, etc.
I’m of the opinion that organ donation should be opt-out; that the standard assumption should be that everyone will be donating… but that there should be an easy mechanism which allows you to get out of the program. Kind of like the inverse of the donation system already in place on most states’ drivers licenses.
I also think that donor should get bumped ahead in line for receiving an organ, ahead of people who have opted out. You don’t want to donate an organ? Fine, but if you need one, you’ll be behind everyone else.
Some people didn’t like this idea. It seemed to really piss people off. I honestly can’t understand their ire.
The way I look at it is this: Once I’m dead, you can do whatever you’d like with my body. I’ve already signed up as an organ donor, and I’ve told my wife that when (if!) I die, she can do whatever she wants with my remains, preferably cremation. She’s done the same.
Nope. What’s mine is mine, and you don’t get it unless I say you can have it. Really doubt there’s a huge demand for organs from a middle aged guy that’s been a heavy smoker for 30+ years anyway, but my body belongs to me. I get to decide what happens to it when I’m done–whether that be burial, cremation, organ donation, or whatever.
Doesn’t matter why someone chooses not to donate. If they think they need their balls in Valhalla, they think being carved up for parts is undignified, they just hate people and don’t want to help anybody…all are perfectly valid personal choices that belong to the individual, not the annoying do goodniks that wish to dictate morality.
I won’t comment on the organ donation, but if the above statement is true then, after you die couldn’t the hospital simply throw away your body in a dumpster or make stew out of it and nobody could stop them? Basically, if “After You’re Dead, You Have No Right To Your Body” who would have legal standing as to what is done to your body?
Is that true? If you die and say you want to be cremated in your will, but your next of kin decide to have you stuffed and put in the parlor instead, who wins out. I always assumed that it was your next of kin who “owned” your body after you’d passed on, and that their wishes would be the ones followed.
Of course, it probably isn’t relevant in this case anyways, since my impression is that you still have to be technically living when a decision is made about organ donation.
This is correct. The family has the right to decide what happens to your body in the absence of some directive made before death.
I think organ donation should be opt-in. Making it opt-out just seems like a way to force those who do not give it much thought to be donors. Why not make donation of your entire estate to lower the national debt opt-out? I would think that confiscation of your remains would be more controversial than confiscation of your wealth after death.
Hard? It was the hardest damn emotional thing I’ve ever had to do. When my mother died I knew she was an organ donor, but it was still hard to actually tell the doctors everything. Plus since it was my mother I didn’t know a full medical history.
I don’t mind the opt out version, but I do think that it should be easy to opt out of for whatever reason.
I think it should remain opt-in like it is. I can think of scenarios where someone would not want to be an organ donor but that info could be lost or not found in time.
Rob (organ donor since I first got a license)
Bricker now that some people have posted their views how about posting yours?
But in that scenario, the worst thing that happens is that a dead person has their organs removed against their wishes. I agree that we should give people the option to prevent this by not forcing them to give their organs, but I don’t really loose sleep if in cases where the persons wishes aren’t known, this might happen. On the other hand…
If its opt-in and the same thing happens, the info can’t be found, then the worst case then is that someone who would’ve given their organs up is instead buried with them, and given the shortage of organs, this ultimately will lead to someone else dying.
Personally, I think the former case is far less harmful then the latter, so given a lack of information about someones wishes, the organs should be harvested. Harvesting should be the default.
But what happens with the inverse situation? I can think of scenarios where someone *does *want to donate their organs, but that info isn’t found in time. Which situation is worse?
If you ask me, the situation that lets organs go to waste when they could possibly help someone who needs them is the worse one. Someone dying needlessly is, to me, a far bigger deal than someone not being buried with their organs intact.
If you don’t have a right to say what’s done with your *body *after you’re dead, how can you have a right to say what’s done with your *possessions *after you’re dead?
It seems like any argument for mandatory organ donation is also an argument against allowing people to make wills.
