Poll: Poll: Organ donation opt out

Organ Donation Opt Out, what say ye?

  • Total voters
    445
I completely forgot that I opted in over a year ago and only just received the letter this week with my donor card and an explanation that they had a backlog.

I'm very happy for everything to go and live on through someone else (so long as they have a net worth over the national average of course ;)).

I'd love it if my tattoos could be removed too and made into a lamp shade for my kids but I doubt that is an option :(.
 
I am a donor organ recepient - slightly different as it was my wife who gave me one of her kidney's. It is difficult to express just how much of a difference receiving a new organ has on your life. I was working full-time and then spending 5hrs+ Monday/Wednesday/Friday evenings for dialysis. Diet was carefully monitored and going away anywhere was difficult because of dialysis requirements.
I guess, in the grand scheme of things, I had the lucky organ failure - there was no reason why I couldn't live as long as somebody with working kidneys, so long as I continued on dialysis and no complications arose.
My new kidney has been working fine for the past 5 years, but I am aware that it could last anything from another day till the end of my life - there is no telling how long a donor organ will last. Anti-rejection drugs are always improving, but your body constantly fights the new organ.
Stem-cell research and artificial organs are the true way forward, but we are a number of years away from this and until then we need those donor organs.

You're dead and when you're dead you don't need any of those organs. Give somebody a chance. Don't opt-out when this all happens.
 
nitram100 said:
Disagree and I'm out. Don't want my parts going to someone I don't want, should be able to select what kind of person your organs go to.
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You'll probably get chastised for that but I'm in the same boat. If there was some kind of criteria you could specify for the recipient then happy days.

As an example, I personally wouldn't want my organs to go to a criminal no matter how petty or self inflicted conditions like livers/lungs for alcoholics and smokers. I do understand there is some probability involved with those two scenarios so that creates internal conflict of would I be comfortable knowing I could deny someone 'deserving' because of my choice. Probably not.
 
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Noxia said:
You'll probably get chastised for that but I'm in the same boat. If there was some kind of criteria you could specify for the recipient then happy days.

As an example, I personally wouldn't want my organs to go to a criminal no matter how petty or self inflicted conditions like livers/lungs for alcoholics and smokers. I do understand there is some probability involved with those two scenarios so that creates internal conflict of would I be comfortable knowing I could deny someone 'deserving' because of my choice. Probably not.
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Smokers/drinkers tend to be pretty low down the lists, unless they're well clear of their damaging habits.

Criminals... I have no idea how they deal with that. Maybe it makes a difference if your time is served or if you're still serving? I don't know.
 
I have been a registered donor for donkeys years at first with a card and now online but what worth they will be to anyone as I am in my 60's now is doubtful.
 
Noxia said:
You'll probably get chastised for that but I'm in the same boat. If there was some kind of criteria you could specify for the recipient then happy days.

As an example, I personally wouldn't want my organs to go to a criminal no matter how petty or self inflicted conditions like livers/lungs for alcoholics and smokers. I do understand there is some probability involved with those two scenarios so that creates internal conflict of would I be comfortable knowing I could deny someone 'deserving' because of my choice. Probably not.
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Yeh I don't think it's too much to ask, if I'm going to be giving my organs at least let me specify where I would like them to go.

Agree 100% I would not want my organs to go to a criminal or someone who self inflicts as you say. I've taken great care of my organs by not smoking, drinking, doing drugs etc and would hate to think they would potentially be destroyed by a smoker or alcoholic.

You want my organs ? Let me choose where they go and we have a deal, i think that's fair.
 
nitram100 said:
Yeh I don't think it's too much to ask, if I'm going to be giving my organs at least let me specify where I would like them to go.

Agree 100% I would not want my organs to go to a criminal or someone who self inflicts as you say. I've taken great care of my organs by not smoking, drinking, doing drugs etc and would hate to think they would potentially be destroyed by a smoker or alcoholic.

You want my organs ? Let me choose where they go and we have a deal, i think that's fair.
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If you're at the stage of being an organ donor then with a few notable exceptions your organs will be destroyed anyway by your death so it's perhaps a bit of a moot point whether they're destroyed by someone not taking care of them or simply by your biological processes stopping. You are perfectly entitled to choose not to donate your organs and if you'd prefer they died with you rather than go to someone you don't feel deserves them (for want of a better phrase) then you've got every right to take that option, it just struck me as a slightly curious distinction to draw.
 
It seems, from a few posts, that people on death would like to play god - "I will decide who is worthy of my organs".
These will never be a system where you can choose who your organs go to. Here in the UK we operate a system where the best possible match is given the available organs. I've known people who have been waiting for a transplant for 3+ years, I've also known people who got one after only a month on the register.
Unlike the US where they operate a true "waiting list", where they have a high level of organ rejection due to the best match not neccessarily getting the transplant and then insurance companies deciding not to pay for the anti-rejection drugs after a number of years as dialysis (for example) is cheaper than the drugs.
So if you are worried that once you are dead that your organs might end up with somebody with a criminal past you really should opt-out as soon as the system goes live - in addition those that don't want their organs to go to a black person, a Scottish person, somebody who once trolled you online, again you should get opted out ASAP
 
Agree and "in".

Looking on the macabre side, I wonder if anyone will be murdered for their organs in future. Not that it'll be commonplace, but I wonder if it might happen periodically. Just thinking brain-farting out loud :p
 
Vonhelmet said:
Do people really know so little about transplants as to think they'll just randomly give new lungs to some 80 a day smoker?? :confused:
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As someone who doesn't work in the medical field nor has been unlucky enough to require one then yes I'm happy to say I don't. Could you give us some facts as you seem to think you're well versed in it? I don't mean that in a hostile way, genuinely curious and also what your source is.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
I don't find it anymore horrifying than rotting in the ground or being thrown to the flames.
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Me dead and walking around = creepier than me dead and not. And besides, the horror comes from being reduced to a public property, collection of spare parts, my dead body being used by others and plundered by vultures. Cremation carries no horrors (so long as I'm definitely dead). I feel that as my body has value, I should have the right to sell my organs upon death if I so wish and the proceeds should be allocated according to my will. I want to die as I have lived - a self-righteous capitalist. I don't want to be divied up and shared out like a pie.

Avenged7Fold said:
By out are you AGREE & OUT or DISAGREE & OUT
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To accurately decide on what the default should be would require me to know what the general population wants. If the general population overwhelmingly wants to be organ donors then it's reasonable to expect those who do not to be aware of this and that the onus is on them to clarify their wishes are different. If a large proportion are known to be very against it being done to them then it's reasonable to have it opt-in otherwise you're going to be overriding a lot of consent simply through bureaucratic weight. As I don't know what the general views are, I can't answer which I think it should be.
 
I received the greatest gift and had a liver transplant last year. Without it my kids wouldn't have a father and my wife a husband, obviously I'm all for getting more people on the transplant register.
 
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