# Should organ donation be mandatory? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 20, 2016, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597 "2016-11-20T21:42:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/21 "2016-11-21T07:29:50Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Absolutely not. My organs are my property. Not yours, not the state’s, not the medical industry’s. Well, they might be your property while you’re alive. But after you’re dead they obviously can’t be your property. In theory they could form part of your estate, and belong you your executor/administrator, who is subject to a duty to transfer them to your heirs (who might, of course, be your creditors, if you die while insolvent). But the problem with this is that your organs _aren/t_, under our current conception, your property. The human body is a thing in which property - a legal fiction, remember - cannot inhere. (Chattel slavery has been abolished, after all.) For that reason, your body isn’t an asset that belongs to your estate, and your creditors can’t seize it. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/22 "2016-11-21T09:12:22Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > But the problem with this is that your organs _aren/t_, under our current conception, your property. The human body is a thing in which property - a legal fiction, remember - cannot inhere. (Chattel slavery has been abolished, after all.) For that reason, your body isn’t an asset that belongs to your estate, and your creditors can’t seize it. Perhaps it’s not property in a legal sense. It is, however, _mine_. One’s body is the single most intimate and fundamental object over which they have ultimate possession and control. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/23 "2016-11-21T09:44:44Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Perhaps it’s not property in a legal sense. It is, however, _mine_. One’s body is the single most intimate and fundamental object over which they have ultimate possession and control. It’s not yours when you’re dead. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/24 "2016-11-21T09:47:17Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > It’s not yours when you’re dead. Of course, you can’t harvest organs from the dead. You need a _living_ body to acquire usable organs. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/25 "2016-11-21T10:03:22Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Of course, you can’t harvest organs from the dead. You need a _living_ body to acquire usable organs. That is not correct. Organs are regularly procured from cardiac-dead patients, as long as they haven’t had time to start smelling. Harvesting from brain-dead patients is also common. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/26 "2016-11-21T10:05:11Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > That is not correct. Organs are regularly procured from cardiac-dead patients, as long as they haven’t had time to start smelling. Harvesting from brain-dead patients is also common. So living patients, in other words. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/27 "2016-11-21T12:07:45Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > That is not correct. Organs are regularly procured from cardiac-dead patients, as long as they haven’t had time to start smelling. Harvesting from brain-dead patients is also common. Not everyone recognizes those definitions of death as valid. Especially when the body is brain dead and the heart is still beating - there’s more than one culture and nation where such a person is still considered alive. But hey, who cares if the Japanese regard a body with a heart beat as still alive and ripping organs out of it is murder, right? They’re viewpoint doesn’t count, it’s more important for people who want mandatory organ donation to get their way and screw anyone who thinks they’re killing people to make them into spare parts. There are also cultures that believe death is when someone stops breathing - would you condone them declaring dead anyone who stops breathing even if their heart was still beating and their brain still showing activity? Forget CPR or even mouth-to-mouth, they stopped breathing, they’re dead, get the saws out! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/28 "2016-11-21T12:17:25Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > In addition to **Broomstick** ’s excellent answer, some Christian groups – not formal denominations, but just church groups – hold that you will need all of your parts in order to appear whole in heaven. > > This is seen in some Catholic iconography, where Saint Sebastian, for instance, bears his many arrow-wounds even in heaven. Saint Agatha is sometimes depicted as carrying her severed breasts on a platter. And Jesus himself bore/bears the stigmata of the crucifixion. You’re mixing two things there. Agatha, Lucy, Inez and co aren’t supposed to be carrying their chopped-off parts around in Heaven (even without the whole discussion about whether Heaven is a place or a state), nor Catherine the wheel or Lawrence the grill; note that often the mutilated saints are carrying the mutilated parts but are themselves whole. Those parts of the iconography are there to help identify the saint. The paintings or statues carrying whatever no more intended to be a portrait of their dead selves than of me. ---
**Author:** ![Monimonika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85e7bf/32.png) [@Monimonika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monimonika)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/29 "2016-11-21T12:50:18Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > I’m also against it because of this stupifyingly wide-spread myth that it “saves” lives. There is no such thing as “saving” lives, under any circumstances whatsoever. It is often possible to **prolong** lives, but that’s **all** that’s possible. When you “save” somebody’s life, you’re not saving it at all – the ONLY thing that you’re doing is making sure that they will die at some other time, probably in some other fashion. We all die eventually, so you just made it completely impossible to “save lives”/“save a life” in any way shape or form by your definition (unless you include fiction in which one can be bestowed immortality, that is). It does not have to be confined to organ transplants. Does this mean you are against a firefighter going in to drag you out of a burning building? The pros and cons of being compensated for organ donation is a worthy debate that I feel really depends on how strongly one feels the financial coercion factor would be, and even whether such coercion should be protected against or not. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/30 "2016-11-21T13:25:53Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > I am against mandatory organ donation partly because the government has wormed its tentacles into enough parts of our lives as it is. We don’t need any more paternalistic laws. > > I’m also against it because of this stupifyingly wide-spread myth that it “saves” lives. There is no such thing as “saving” lives, under any circumstances whatsoever. It is often possible to **prolong** lives, but that’s **all** that’s possible. When you “save” somebody’s life, you’re not saving it at all – the ONLY thing that you’re doing is making sure that they will die at some other time, probably in some other fashion. > > If your concern is the number of people whose lives could be prolonged by an organ transplant, the only efficient thing, and the only thing that will actually solve the situation, is to repeal the idiotic laws that prohibit payment for organ donations. If you want to believe that no actions save lives, but only prolong them; (I think that’s a silly hill to die on but…) fine, just mentally replace “save” with “prolong” in all discussions. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/31 "2016-11-21T14:41:43Z")
I believe the law should be changed to presume consent. Pass a Federal law. Phase it in over, say, a three-year period. Arrange for lots of public service announcements and press coverage about the upcoming change in policy. Make opt-out forms even more widely available than voter registration is now: online, at libraries, DMVs, senior and community centers, hospitals, doctors’ and dentists’ offices, student unions, etc. (but include info in an accompanying pamphlet as to why organ donation is a very good idea). Provide that those who are comatose or mentally disabled cannot have organs harvested in any event. Opt-out forms are to be filed with the person’s physician _and_ with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, kept in a secure database, and available at the request of any two doctors. A record is kept of any such requests, and there are criminal penalties and fines for anyone convicted of a bogus request. Then, after three years, the change takes effect. Even the adamant objections of spouse or family that “Poor old [whoever] would never want his organs to be harvested” would be legally irrelevant if the deceased never opted out in writing. Organ harvesting from children would still require the consent of parents. That should do the trick. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/32 "2016-11-21T15:31:01Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Absolutely not. My organs are my property. Not yours, not the state’s, not the medical industry’s. > > If I want to donate them that’s my choice. If you want to donate yours, that’s your choice. You have no right to compel me or threaten to withhold medical care from me. But of course we can. I don’t have to provide you with an organ if you were never willing to provide me with one. However, I don’t think we should preclude those who won’t donate organs. I have not been able to identify a religion that prohibits donating and organ but is cool with accepting an organ, there are a few that permit the donation of organs but are stricter about accepting organs but presumably one exists somewhere. I also agree that a small bounty of for harvesting a body would provide some material comfort in addition to the emotional comfort that organ donation can give to the grieving family. If you needed to break it down I would be willing to give $1000 for just one kidney, if you can live a full and meaningful life with just one kidney, I suspect you can life a full and meaningful afterlife with just one kidney as well. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/33 "2016-11-21T15:33:35Z")
How much would it relieve the organ shortage if we made donating ONE kidney the default (with an opt out) and all other things remained equal (i.e. people who currently are willing to donate all their organs continue to do so)? As stated above, I think you cold probably muddle through in heaven with just the one kidney. How much would it strain the system if the system paid out $1000 to each such harvested kidney? ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/34 "2016-11-21T15:55:53Z")
When there is a shortage of anything, prices are artificially low. Basic econ 101. Raise the prices paid for organs and watch the shortage disappear. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/35 "2016-11-21T16:04:55Z")
I believe the main reason why the law prohibits money for organs is that they don’t want anyone to be incentivized to increase the supply, so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/36 "2016-11-21T16:23:04Z")
Black markets for organs already exist. People already pay good money for organs. It’s better to have doctors removing these organs in hospitals and doing the buying and selling above board, with oversight and according to the law, rather than cartels and murderers harvesting organs in back alleys and leaving victims’ corpses in their wake. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/37 "2016-11-21T16:25:38Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > There is no such thing as “saving” lives, under any circumstances whatsoever. It is often possible to **prolong** lives, but that’s **all** that’s possible. When you “save” somebody’s life, you’re not saving it at all – the ONLY thing that you’re doing is making sure that they will die at some other time, probably in some other fashion. You have a very limited definition of the word “save.” When I go out to dinner, if I choose to “save” my leftovers, I’m not going to store them for eternity; I’m planning to eat them later. And I “save” part of every paycheck, but I still intend to spend it at some future date. And when I put my cell phone into “battery saving” mode, I don’t expect the battery to last forever; it’s just prolonging the time between chargings. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/38 "2016-11-21T16:55:45Z")
I’m all for mandatory organ donation, but you know sooner or later there’s going to be a horror story about some patient’s organs being harvested when in fact he or she was still barely technically alive, or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![Vicsage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e68b1a/32.png) [@Vicsage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vicsage)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/39 "2016-11-21T17:23:02Z")
How much of an increase would actually occur if donation was required? Donors who are beyond a certain age have organs that can’t be used, Since a lot of people die old, they’re no use. If you have had cancer, I also think you are rejected as a donor (according to an oncologist I asked) . Since this is a large number of people in the younger age groups, they’re out. I would imagine other diseases that kill younger people would also make their organs unusable. I would also think dying from an infection might rule out donation. This seems to mainly leave accident victim or people who die of cardiac troubles although this kind of leaves out hearts. Strokes and accidents are pretty much it. Not that large of a pool. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597/40 "2016-11-21T17:52:01Z")
> [@Vicsage](#): > > How much of an increase would actually occur if donation was required? There are something like 30,000 deaths per year in automobile accidents in the U.S. There are something like 4000-5000 deaths per year of people waiting for kidney transplants. I’d assume a high fraction of the former would not be rejected as too old, having cancer, etc. And note you can cover two of the latter with one of the former. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-organ-donation-be-mandatory/772597.md?page=3)