Should organ donation be manditory?

[NellNell]

If your not going to need them, then I see absolutely no reason to keep them. Its as people have said above, selfish.

That being said a opt-out would be better then forcing everyone to do it.

 

[Periodic]

I would also like to call attention to some of your previous arguments quite a bit earlier, saying that opting out of organ donation an interference with the wellbeing of others. Though you clearly did not intend it, you've actually formulated a good argument for why the system should be opt-in, because if it were an opt-out system, that argument you made could be used to justify making organ donation mandatory. Only if it were an opt-out system however. It does NOT work in the context of the current opt-in system.

Furthermore, arguing that not donating your organs is "sacrificing" people is, frankly, lunatic logic. "Sacrificing" and "not saving" are two completely different things.

I actually made that argument to support a mandatory organ donation for everyone, not opt out.

Also, when did I say not donating would mean sacrificing other people? What I did say is that refusing to donate after you're dead is denying someone their chance to continue living whereas you don't need that change because you're already dead. I'd understand saying that if someone advocated people should be forced to donate their organs at a certain age or something but as it stands, it's just plain immoral and selfish to not be an organ donor. You have the right to do whatever you want with your body as long as you do not infringe on another persons well being. Not donating your organs is infringing on another persons well being.

Not donating your organs is no more infringing on another person's well-being than not donating your money, or any other worldly possessions to charity is infringing on another person's well-being. The life and death stakes don't matter since we're basing this off the simplistic, catch all philosophy of "you have the right to do whatever you want so long as it doesn't infringe on the well-being of others", plenty of people probably need your stuff more than your family.

The point is, that to say "refusing to donate your organs infringes on people's well-being" is to assume that even while you are still alive, you are in co-ownership of your body with the government. If you are allowed to decide what to do with your possessions after you die, you should be allowed to decide what to do with your body after you die.

Your interpretation of what "infringement" consists of is very vague and could be used to justify a great deal of things. You are trying to come up with a neat, tidy, irrefutable train of logic to support your argument, when the subject is NOT that clean-cut.

 

[Matt-the-twat]

Yes, it should be an opt out system.

 

[Sylvine]

Not donating your organs is no more infringing on another person's well-being than not donating your money, or any other worldly possessions to charity is infringing on another person's well-being.

Okay, I'm a bit tired of this one.

Can You tell me how, exactly, are You going to NOT donate Your money or any other worldly possessions?

Because unless You make an effort to liquidate them all and spend all Your money right before You die, someone's gonna inherit. Which is, technically speaking, a donation.

Edit: Again, the opt-out system does not disallow You to decide what happens to You after You die. You can opt out. You can make a will. But just as there are no laws that say Your worldly posessions should be burried or burned with Your corpse in case of an accident and no testament, why should that be the case for organs? For a long time, they were not a commodity. They are now, though. A very precious one.

~Sylv

 

[The Man With the Soap]

It's not a donation if you are required to give it up.

It should be SOP, though.

 

[MagnetoHydroDynamics]

Already gonna donate my brain to science. I need to get myself a donors card.

 

[Trasken]

Even in countries where there is health care for everyone you still pay it out of your taxes.
There fore and this is not theory but fact, by paying what we pay for our private coverage or universal healtcare we ARE entitled to these procedures and donations even if we are not pro donation.

Sure you are, as long as you are a donor. If you refuse to become one you are exempt from paying for your healthcare which would mean a slight decrease in your taxes. You are entitled to any procedure the doctor sees fit as long as the guy waiting for an organ is entitled to his procedure.

I would like to finish by saying that im NOT against voluntary donation i respect them, i myself have a few reservations about donating so i don't sign up, but being forced and coerced into donating IS a violation of our FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL rights which are the most important rights we have

Yes, it's as violation of your right to be selfish. By Zeus how could I have been so foolish to believe that after death your perfectly good organs should be harvested to help keep others alive rather than leave them to rot in a grave. Would you be more comfortable with the idea if everyone told you your organs wouldn't be harvested but the moment you'd die we'd totally do? Do we really need to do this in a society where you're supposed to care for your fellow man rather than succumb to selfishness?

Constitutions are not written in stone, no matter what any government would like you to think. Constitutional laws and rights are often broken or loopholes are used to get around them. Ignoring this, a constitution can be changed at any moment but doing it "officially" means going through a lot of red tape and other bullshit. Doing it violently seems to work fine though.

It's not like constitutional rights are given to us by some sort of all powerful deity. They're made by people, the same people who inhabit the world right now. They're subject to change and can be changed or simply removed as quickly as they were made.

So if im not a donor i cannot pay for private care like they do in America?

You seem to have an idea that constitutions come and go like the wind, that is not true and the fact that you think that violently establishing a constitution is necessary in this day and age is worrying but whatever it's your opinion.

Now its a violation of my constitutional right not to be selfish but to decide what happens to my remains, why is it so wrong to NOT care for strangers?

Ok new example albeit a tad exagerated but i think fits the situation more or less.
You are the only person in your town with bone marrow compatible to that of a patient that needs it withing 24 hours or will die, it will take 72 hours to find another donor.
You don't know this person at all but the doctors approach you and ask you if you would be willing to do the donation even if there is a 60% chance you0ll be paralyzed from the waist down.
Would you take such a risk for a stranger?

Let's say you're well off, not rich but doing better than most.
A complete stranger asks you give him 10000$ to pay for the heart operation his little girl needs to live. And for the sake of the argument you are the only one able to give him this money. Would you do it?

How woul you feel if you were told you had to give the man your marrow and risk paralyzation because you didn't fill out the paperwork to say you dont want to do it to the proper authorities?
How would you feel if you had to give the man the 10000$

It's easy to take the moral high ground, but it's more realistic to take the pragmatic route and care for your own and your own only as is natural.

 

[Tyr2440]

the opt out system would work , but there should be perhaps education towards the benefits and the lives changes and the CHOICE to be made mandatory

 

[Wintermoot]

I think they should check for medical history before they harvast maybe the person has cancer that spread.
other then that religious is a reason somebody might not want to do it but I agree if your dead you obviously don,t need it anymore.

 

[emeraldrafael]

I would say no, because there are a lot of diseased people around (an I get it, tests being done and all, but stuff slips through), and some people dont for religious reasons.

besides, some people dont like the idea of someone taking a family member's organs, wanting to keep it in them in case they (the person who doesnt like the idea) needs it.

 

[Vrach]

I believe it should yeah, no reason not to. Sadly won't see it happen any time soon thanks to religion.

 

[Periodic]

Not donating your organs is no more infringing on another person's well-being than not donating your money, or any other worldly possessions to charity is infringing on another person's well-being.

Okay, I'm a bit tired of this one.

Can You tell me how, exactly, are You going to NOT donate Your money or any other worldly possessions?

Because unless You make an effort to liquidate them all and spend all Your money right before You die, someone's gonna inherit. Which is, technically speaking, a donation.

~Sylv

Yes and you decide who you wish to inherit your money, and you can choose somebody who doesn't need it as much as somebody else. I am arguing that it is nothing but a matter of degree. If you are infringing somebody's well-being by not donating organs, then are you not infringing somebody's well-being by not donating all your money to the people who need it most? If the government should have control of your body upon your death, then why not all your assets too? Surely it could make better use of them.

 

[Trasken]

I would also like to point out that the argument that by not donating we are violating someones right to being healthy, while a ridicolous claim, cannot be claimed either because we cannot be held responsible for indirect damage a person may or may not receive when we make use of our right to choosing how we are treated upon death, when there is doubt the court tends to settle in favor of the one who may indirectly harm someone since allowing the potential injured to win would make it so that everyone could somehow claim a potential damage for any situation

 

[Aris Khandr]

You have the right to do whatever you want with your body as long as you do not infringe on another persons well being. Not donating your organs is infringing on another persons well being.

I'm not infringing on anyone's well being, because no one else has any right to my body. To state otherwise is to say that I'm infringing on someone's well being because I have $5 in my pocket that I don't need, and I'm not choosing to use it to buy someone a sandwich.

 

[Sylvine]

All those examples, Trasken, have one definite flaw:

As a potential organ donor in what we are discussing, YOU.ARE.DEAD. There's no risk of losing ANYTHING. Because You are DEAD.

All those examples, Trasken, have one definite flaw:

As a potential organ donor in what we are discussing, YOU.ARE.DEAD. There's no risk of losing ANYTHING. Because You are DEAD.

Yes and you decide who you wish to inherit your money, and you can choose somebody who doesn't need it as much as somebody else. I am arguing that it is nothing but a matter of degree. If you are infringing somebody's well-being by not donating organs, then are you not infringing somebody's well-being by not donating all your money to the people who need it most? If the government should have control of your body upon your death, then why not all your assets too? Surely it could make better use of them.

That's a debatable position, however, not really subject of the debate. A definite difference: Someone always inherits. If You don't donate organs, though, they just go to waste.

I don't think anyone would argue against, say, deciding that, given the choice, Your organs should go to Your family first. But the facts are different, it's not even that Your family doesn't need it, it can't even USE it. If You estabilish in Your will and testament that Your body shall be cremated and he ashes given to Your family, well, that's a waste, but at least in the opt-out system, You are allowed to do that. The system just prevents You to, figuratively, set fire to a commodity that could save lives. AFTER You're dead and can gain nothing from it. And, here's the best part, without even really wanting to do it. That's not just wasteful, that's criminally stupid.

~Sylv

 

[Trasken]

All those examples, Trasken, have one definite flaw:

As a potential organ donor in what we are discussing, YOU.ARE.DEAD. There's no risk of losing ANYTHING. Because You are DEAD.

~Sylv

I will concede they may be exaggerated, but the first one is a possibility in your opt out system, after all your marrow will not be completely taken away it will slowly regenerate but it is still something that is subject to donation like organs, with your opt out system i might be elgally obligated to donate my marrow undergoing the risky operation. See how a lawyer can argue that because your donation is obligatory you have to undergo that operation because you dind't opt out? Best case scenario you pay the family of the deceased for not donating your marrow in concept of grief and loss (direct translation from spanish dont know the technical english term) Worst case you have to undergo the operation.

 

[thepyrethatburns]

To be honest, I think I've found the perfect solution to organ donation. In order to receive medical treatment you'd have to be an organ donor. You're free to opt out at any time but the moment you do so your access to healthcare is denied. I find this a fare trade off.

Seriously.....wow. If you read my first post above, you'll see that I'm a donor but this is way over the line.

For example, I've got a few addendums for your system.

If you ever drink alcohol, you're no longer allowed any treatment for liver disease.
Eat at McDonalds? Heart disease and obesity-related diseases are now off the table for treatment.
Play video games? Better hope that you never have vision issues or any carpal tunnel.

And so on......

If we're going to punish people for their choices, why not punish them for lifestyle choices that cause the need for organ replacement?

Look, I know you're upset because Hiname is taking a course of action that you (and I) don't agree with but freedom is allowing people to make choices that you don't agree with.

Okay, couple of things:

*Concerning the whole "My things, only I get to decide" line of argumentation: It doesn't work like that. It really doesn't. Invalidated by one word: Taxes.

So, we have our precedent. As long as You are in a state which taxes its citizens (aka. pretty much every state), You're already admitting You don't have full control over Your own ressources.

You can argue that You don't want to be taxed, too. It's just that arguments like that tend to be smashed in a more or less serious debate pretty quickly. There are a lot of laws passed over "I don't like it", true, but it's not exactly a desirable state of things - except for people who happen to like or dislike the "right" things.

That doesn't actually invalidate it. If it did, then there would be no such things as rights. The police could just kick down your door and shoot you whenever they feel like it then take your stuff. Saying that there is precedent for some state control does not lead to precedent for state control in all areas. We're moving in that direction but I, for one, would not be too eager to rush towards a dictatorship.

*Second, Rights. That's a whole bag'o'worms here, because it's difficult to find an universally acceptable definition. They can be conventional, arbitrary, god-given or nonexistant, depending on perspective. But they're not set in stone, as historical precedent proves. One does not even have to go far back to find it, just think Woman Rights, or Slavery in the US.

Both of which have arguments concerning who owns their body or a person. In both cases, people and the courts side with the individual owning themselves.

...exactly. My right to live trumps Your right not to feel uncomfortable for a while with the thought of Your body being harvested after Your death - or not to have to waste time to fill out a form. I'd say that's reasonable.

And people's right to live trumps your right to have extra money for luxuries such as video games. Under this line of reasoning, seizing any of your money and property that is not strictly for food, water, and shelter is also reasonable.

People always say many things are reasonable until the line of reasoning turns on them.

A good comparison is the abortion debate, though let's drop the question of morality for a while:

Isn't this whole debate a big morality debate on whether it's moral for people to make a choice to hold onto their guts after death?

Likewise, I don't deny that there is a possibility of some rich guy identifying You as a possible heart donor for his lovely daughter and killing You for that. Except that people inclined to do that and who have the ressources to do it can do it anyway, right now. Because we're not proposing to murder people for body parts, that would still be as illegal as it is now - if not more so.

Up until these "greater good" arguments get taken to the next logical extreme. Why should the street bum who has done nothing but leech off of society be permitted to do so when there are productive citizens who need his organs?

Whenever you propose new laws, you should look at our current laws and then think through what will become of the new laws. More often than not, the rich and powerful will twist even good-sounding laws to become perverted replicas of themselves.

....

I think my problem with a lot of the arguments in this topic is that people are proposing dictatorial responses to people's freedom of choice. As I said before, I'm an organ donor so I think my position on organ donation is clear. However, I don't support these ideas that people are coming up with that strip people of their right to choose even if the decision is (in my opinion) selfish and wasteful. If you support taking away other people's rights to make choices that you disagree with, eventually people will support taking away your rights because they disagree with your choices. We're gamers. We should all be familiar with how it feels to be on the wrong end of that equation.

I swear, schools should make Niemoller required reading.

 

[Strixvaliano]

I personally believe that it should not be mandatory or opt-out. It is fine the way it is as opt-in. I will not have my organs removed to save someone. Selfish? Sure, I'm not going to paint it any other way.

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual.)" -Ayn Rand

 

[Parivir]

How's this for an Idea
You have to either opt in or opt out.
If you do neither then at your death a coin is flipped do decide your organs' fates.
That way both opinions are equaly inconvinenced and on average there would still be more organs available, clearly the most balanced way : )
Plus this way organ donors still get there 'donor cards' as proof of there charity.

Also they could have a tier system of 'organs for all', 'organs for family' and 'hands off'.

if this idea is not put into play then opt out please cause want my non-organ donor card.

SIDE NOTE: where the hell is the beta symbol key reCAPTCHA, WHERE IS IT!!!

 

[JochemDude]

It should be standard, but if you don't want to you can do that aswell. Don't know why you would want to do that, seems like about the most selfish piece of shit move you can pull on your fellow people. I mean you're kinda condemning them to death, I see rejecting it as murder, but if you're religion or other standard tells you it's Oke. Not that much I can do about it, huh.