As it stands at the moment (in the UK) one must carry a donor card or be signed up to the organ donor register before any of your organs or tissues can be retained for use after your death.
The British Medical Association would like to change the way organs are currently donated. They would like to see a system in which organ donor ship is assumed unless one has actively opted out of donating.
What objections, if any, would you have if the BMA’s suggested system were to be implemented?
Some believe that for your body to remain alive after you die makes you a zombie. They have religious objections to this. It can be a nightmare for a family who believes this. There are other religions that believe that the body must remain intact for the afterlife. Again, the family that stay behind can be quite distressed by knowing their loved one will not be waiting for them in the afterlife.
Opting out would have to be made rather easier than giving blood - even using the internet it took me a good few years to establish where and when I could donate in Scotland. The organ donation scheme seems to have strong links with the blood donation one in the UK, so it’s to be hoped their public relations sides will dramatically improve.
imho it should be assumed, but then I don’t have any objections to donation anyway. I believe some religious groups object.
Simple, make it so that in order to be considered for organ transplant (as a recipient) you need to have been a donor for X ammount of time. Seems fair. You want to have other people hand over their parts, you should be equally willing. I think that would spike the number of people who sign up.
On the reverse, you could make that the default, you simply need for the process of turning off that default be easy and advertised (so that everyone knows what the default is).
I am not actually sure how organ donation works in the States. I think that it it up to the family of the person donating if they are no longer able to voice their opinion. I do think that it should be left up to the desceased or family thereof. A living will would be able to clear up the matter of donation or not.
I know that when I got my first driver’s liscense they asked me and that when I got my second it was not even listed.
I like the idea of being able to ‘opt out’, but otherwise becoming an automatic donor. I can understand religious beliefs keeping those from donating, but I’m going to take a guess and state that the percentage of those people wouldn’t be terribly high.
We need to do something. Too many people are dying waiting.
It probably is still listed. My old license used to say “ORGAN DONOR” in big letters on the back, if I recall correctly, but my current license just has a little “Donor” with “yes” under it that is the same size as all the other information, like hair color, eye color, etc. I don’t recall if they ask every time I renew my license or if it is assumed that you haven’t changed, so maybe they forgot to ask you and it only lists something if you are a donor? I think it is typical to have the information on driver’s licenses in the USA. If there is no information on a person’s donor status available to the hospital, then I believe the family is asked.
Well I’d be all for making it mandatory, but that’s why the UK has elected officials and not me.
In the real world, I’m happy to settle for an assumed system. Organ anti-donor cards should be printed up in large numbers and made available at surgeries and at hospitals (where a religious (or indeed any) organisation would be able to pick up boxes of them for their members, if they wish).
Anti-donors should probably leave a card with their next of kin to avoid any problems if they’re not carrying their card when they die. Ideally, your donation state could be changed online as well, but that would require you to know/find out your NHS number.
I like sghoul’s idea - if you opt out, then you opt out of both ends of the process. Can’t see anyone managing to push that through though.
I’m all for an opt-out system.
As a passionate atheist (yes they exist 
) …I’d hate to think that anybody would worry that I ‘might’ have dislikes for such procedures, once I’m dead. At least my whole family would have no doubts about my expectations.
I do think the opt-out system is excellent. After all, if anybody is passionate enough to believe xyz about their afterlife, surely they have the commitment to fill out the form to say “no thankyou”? IIRC, Austria already operates such a system.
[QUOTE=sghoul]
Simple, make it so that in order to be considered for organ transplant (as a recipient) you need to have been a donor for X ammount of time. Seems fair. You want to have other people hand over their parts, you should be equally willing. I think that would spike the number of people who sign up…
[QUOTE]
Sort of, but perhaps something a little less punitive.
What about this: You found an Organ Donors Club. In joining, you must agree to donate all harvestable organs in the event of your death. The benefit is that the members of this organization get first shot at any available organs in the event that they need them. There would be a special dispensation for minors, naturally, until they reach adulthood (in which case they get bumped to the back of the line like everyone else unless they join).
One big thing would be that this group would need to have a veritable legion of rabid lawyers so that it was quickly established that you just do not fuck with them. I am seeing, for example, in the event that the family tries to prevent the donation of a members organs (which would probably work the first few times with injunctions and delays and the like) that these lawyers figure out who would have received the organs and charge that family with wrongful death. I am talking about Uber-Lawyers with freaking laser beams here! They would need to behave as if time and money were not a factor in protecting the interests of the organ bank.
I would also add as a variant that in order to have a license to operate a motorcycle that being an organ donor be mandatory.
Maybe not so simple for a doctor. I’m not sure they would appreciate being put in the position of telling someone, “What’s that buddy? Now you want a kidney to keep you alive? Sorry mate, can’t help you. Should have thought of that a bit earlier, shouldn’t you?”
I find the idea of an “opt out” plan to be abhorent.
The most basic tenet of a free society must be that a person owns his own body. I see no reason that this should change due one’s death. In that case, the decision should fall to next-of-kin.
The opt out does not deny that one may own one’s own body (otherwise you couldn’t opt out). However by simply setting donation as the default if no opt-out is signed, it puts the balance in favour of the living rather than the dead. Which is also something a free society might find useful.
Can I join the argument? As much as I like the “opt-out” plan, I can see immediately how it can be abused. Can’t reach the next of kin? Can’t find an opt-out card on the patient? Those organs are up for grabs. What if the next of kin couldn’t be found because the organs were needed? What if the opt-out card goes missing because of the urgency to transplant viable organs?
I personally like Binarydrone’s Organ Donor’s Club. I’m in! Then, again, I filled out my donor card and placed the pink “donor” dot on the front of my driver license (one of the ways it’s done in the US) from the day I got my first one on my 16th birthday. If any bits of me can help anyone else once I’m technically “gone,” all the better.
I disagree. A free society would assume that one owns one’s own body unless one agrees to “sell” it. The parallel I see is “legal unless the law says you can’t do it” and “illegal unless the law says you can do it”.
Also, the “opt out” plan, when taken to its logical conclusion, would lead to “no will = your property belongs to the state”. If a person dies without explicitly leaving his property to an heir, let’s just take it and use it for the medical expenses of somone who “needs” it. Create a new list for people who can’t aford some expensive, life-saving procedure. It’s your lucky day when some schmo dies without a will.
No way would I agree to this type of system.
In the UK there is a National Register of people who wish to make their organs available for transplant upon their death. No worries about looking for lost or “missing” donor cards, no need to question next of kin. A simple query of the register reveals whether you are a donor or not.
If organ donor ship were to become assumed, we just need a national register of people who do not wish to become donors.
Personal beliefs aside, ASSUMING to do anything with someone’s body after they die is asinine. The only thing that should be assumed is to contact the spouse, next of kin and/or other designated parties. Organ donorship should be a wholly voluntary manner, not an opt-out manner.
What should be done is programs to educate people to volunteer for organ donation, not force them to bend over backwards to opt out of a program.
Why not ASSUME that everyone wants to be cremated, too?
There are enough medical mix ups with organ donorship as it stands for someone to, I dunno, die without their wallet handy, and be sliced and diced against their wishes. You can only harvest organs so long after the deceased has passed, you know - there isn’t always time to conduct an in depth investigation of the person’s belief structure.
Personally, I want them to rip everything useful out of me they can and burn me to cinders, but I wouldn’t assume that anyone else wants similar services unless they asked for it.
In the UK we have, in addition to donor cards, a National Register of donors. Should assumption of donor ship come about, we simply need a National Register of anti-donors. No missing/lost anti-donor card issues, no intrusive questioning of grieving relatives.
Damn those hamsters!