Should organ donation be manditory?

[JMeganSnow]

But if You are looking for a model where the free market decides, look no further than India, which actually banned free organ trade a few years back after having had it for a long time due to pretty gross exploitations of people (buying kidneys for $1000, selling for $32000, for example. Or harvestation without consent during operations to sell them off later).

The existence or non-existence of a ban does NOT in and of itself make for a free market, a condition that has NEVER existed in India. The ban did not *end* these "injustices"--the black market is alive and well in India because what India lacks is a vital component of a free market: impersonal rights-respecting government. (Yes, that's right, you need a proper government for the free market to operate.) And if buying a kidney for $1000 and selling it for $32000 (totally ignoring the ENORMOUS cost of removal, transport, prep, etc that goes into that) is unjust, then how exactly is buying a kidney for NOTHING and selling it for $200,000 (about the going price in the U.S.) a BETTER demonstration of justice? And keep in mind that ALL organs procured in the U.S. are procured by GOVERNMENT agencies (OPO's). That money ain't profit; it barely covers costs.

In fact, due in part to the perpetually cash-strapped state of those OPO's, many, many organs that people would otherwise be happy to see used go unharvested. (It's not cost-effective for a single agency that *has* to cover an entire state to visit every podunk hospital in whereverthehellthisisville. They concentrate on major cities.) On the other hand, with tissue (which is harvested by non-government companies--all SIX of them in the U.S.--and those six sure as heck don't COVER the U.S., their expansion, development and coverage is limited by required not-for-profit status, so they can't reinvest earnings back into the company and expand that way, they have to beg for DONATIONS in order to increase their size and coverage) many products actually experience a market GLUT. The tissue bank I worked for actually threw out a lot of procured fascia (which is used in a number of soft-tissue surgeries) because nobody would buy the stuff; we got in WAY more of it than anyone had any use for. The only thing we were perpetually short of was skin, and this wasn't due to a huge demand for skin, per se, but instead due to the fact that we priced it WELL below what the market would normally support, turning it into a cheap throwaway one-use product for lazy hospitals and doctors looking to conserve their stores of the otherwise vastly-superior (and more expensive) artificial products out there. (Yes, the artificial stuff is actually *superior* to the "real" stuff. It's even better to use the person's own skin, but large-scale skin injuries can make this impossible, and even with smaller-scale stuff it's not always advisable to inflict further injury on the person.) If we hadn't sold at an "EVERYTHING MUST GO!!" price, there wouldn't have been much of a market for it at all.

I could go on and on like this. The distortion of the market for these products by incredibly stupid legislation is literally too absurd to be believed. It amazes me that the "solution" most people propose is to take that situation and MAKE IT WORSE by yet more ill-considered legislation, when getting RID of the whole stupid mess is ultimately the only thing that will "fix" it. Granted, it may not "fix" it in a manner that some people with an agenda would like, but the system will be sanely based on reality instead of the variant whims of legislators, and that's a definite improvement.

And isn't making donation mandatory PRECISELY "harvestation (sic) without consent"? You'd better get yourself straightened out about precisely what you're in favor of, here.

 

[Doug]

EDIT: to be clear just as the guy below said, I mean more opt-out than the current opt in thing

Opt-out would be better than the current system - wholly mandatory... I can see being useful but I'd imagine people would complain.

 

[SoranMBane]

Unless the dead person has family members who object to letting their organs be used as donors, the organs of the dead should always be available for medical or scientific purposes. Dead people don't have rights anymore, nor do the living owe any dues to the dead.

 

[Madara XIII]

Meh take my organs if you want, IDGAF.

Just be sure to give me a proper burial and my picture to the people I've donated my organs to with a note saying.

"BE GRATEFUL YA LITTLE BASTARD"

 

[rutger5000]

Change the title, but yes that is by far the best idea. Let everybody know their are organ-donors, but that they can change it if they want to. If you don't want to be an organ-donor, but are too lazy to fill out the form, then though shit.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Mandatory? Nah. Gotta respect people's wishes. Or grab a shovel and keep watch for freshly dug piles of earth. Second hand organs, cheap! Even second hands!

 

[zeonz]

I don't know about other countries, but in mine they did a research on it.
apperently a substantial amount of people aren't organ donors becaus there to lazy to sign up!

personaly i believe that everyone should be a donor, unless they opt out, and im talking about a simple procedure for this.

Last year alone i got 2 organ donor info cards. these could easily be changed to do the opposite ( cost/price stays the same ) while the availability of organs and therefor lives will drasticly increase.

If not, the least they could do is change it so that organ donors have priority on organs instead of everyone having equil rights on donored organs. ( priority on people who signed up at least an X amount of time before they got problems/symbtoms )

 

[Kraj]

Better educate people, and make it opt-out.
Sounds pretty simple to me. informed consent will have been met, and more lives shall be saved. Sounds like a win'win to me.

personally I'm an opt-out kinda guy. But that's only because of possibility of lesser treatment based on my bloodtype.
However after I'm dead, "and not dying" then why would I care. Do what you will. I just don't want any decisions during my dying to be made with the assumption that "after this one's dead we get a lung".

-_- screw that.

 

[Sylvine]

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.

No. They both don't apply. There's a very definite difference, which I already stated: We were considering opt-out systems as purely post-mortem harvest systems. That way, the individual in question can't really be harmed, barring a quite narrow margin of error which could possibly even be completely eliminated through regulation. Because the individual in question is dead at the time. There can be no harm done to a dead person. Forcing a living person to go through a process that is likely to incapacitate him is not nearly copmparable.

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.

Sorry, but it does. I was not saying the existance of taxation is a valid reason enough to validate everything, but it does invalidate the claim that it's some god-given right to always be able to decide what happens to Your assets. It's a socially accepted (well, broadly) form of state control that has some very solid arguments backing it. Hey, just like the opt-out system. With the difference that You can't really opt out of taxes, so it's actually better.

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.

In those cases. I was just pointing out that rights are flexible and can be changed. And in any case, post-mortem ownership is a very abstract concept, and pretty much nonexistant in any legislature as far as I'm aware of, so no contradiction there.

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.

Alas, I would personally agree, and I would succumb to such a system. Honestly.

Of course, to put it in perspective, one would have to make no distinction between rich and poor there, since money, unlike kidneys, is universally usable. And it would make sense to first seize the money and property of people who have much more of it than anyone else.

Hey, don't we have such a system on a state level already? Oh yeah! Taxation!

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?

Not in the point I was making. I wanted to avoid the side of the abortion argument that deals with the killing of a fetus, i.e. the moral part, and concentrate on the mechanical part. Legalizing abortion does not lead to people having abortions for fun. Likewise, I don't see the masses developing a fine taste for recreative organ transplantation anytime soon.

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.

Sure. So what do You propose? Because, see, I can take any "My personal good" arguments to the next logical extreme as well. What is the point? Yes, everything is abusable. It's the task of the legislative in a country to make sure it's as difficult as possible to abuse it, have controlling instances etc. etc. You can't hold the corruption of a system against having a system in the first place, because every system is corruptable. The alternative is anarchy, and that has quite a lot of weak points as well.

Besides, I disagree with calling it dictatorian methods. I think we should have it, I present arguments for it, and I expect them to stand on the basis of their own logical merit. If enough people are convinced, it's a democratic choice. If it is passed, and anyone disagrees, they can rally against it, or leave the country. Pure democracy.

~Sylv

 

[rutger5000]

Unless the dead person has family members who object to letting their organs be used as donors, the organs of the dead should always be available for medical or scientific purposes. Dead people don't have rights anymore, nor do the living owe any dues to the dead.

Bullcrap death people do have rights, and they've had them for a long time. One of the many things decided during in the Geneva treaty, was that dead enemie soldiers should be treated with respect, and be given some kind of burial if reasonably possible.
Also it's a terrible idea to ask family members for premission, or let their decision play any part. For organ donation to be succesfull it needs to be done as quickly as possible after the person is brain-death. This is often shortly after an accident or something. It's a very emmotional moment, and such an important decision can't be properly be made at that time in such a short period.
Best idea by far is and always will be to make everyone an organ donor, but give people the right to change that.

 

[Risingblade]

No! They are mine and there's no reason I should have to give them to other people if I don't want to.

 

[nuba km]

To all the opt-outs:

London Zoo is looking for some fresh meat to feed their animals and they'd quite like your corpse once the organs have been removed. You'd be helping to feed some animals that will die without your help, so we've decided that if you don't want your corpse fed to the hungry tigers, all you have to do is visit London Zoo once before you die.

That's only fair, isn't it? I mean, you wouldn't want those poor animals to die - and you're not using the rest of your body, are you?

Spoiler: This could be you, helping keep these majestic beasts alive!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See why appeals to humanity don't work?

See this argument doesn't work on me as my logic is, once I am dead anything that happens to my corpse doesn't really matter, I don't care if it is used as a urinal. Why? because I'll be dead and nothing would affect me. Also to answer your question I would be fine with having the remainder of my corpse to be fed to the animals.

 

[kickyourass]

It should definitely be opt-out rather than opt-in in my opinion, certainly in times of shortage.

This is probably the best way to go with it.

 

[krazykidd]

no it should no be manditory , what happend to freedom of choice ? alot of things that are illegal ( like no wearing a seat-belt) should be legal also ( sure people die , but who DOESNT know seatbelts save lives , freedom of choice ). Back on topic , some people are uncomfortable with the thought of having their body played through to take out an organ , or theres religious reasons that would restrict peopel from giving their organs. For respect of peoples privacy and freedom of choice , it should NOT be manditory.

 

[SouthpawFencer]

For a libertarian perspective on organ donations:

http://reason.com/search?cx=000107342346889757597:scm_knrboh8&cof=FORID:11&ie=UTF-8&q=organ+donation&sa=Search

(those of you who liked the idea of "if you sign up to be an organ doner, you get preferential treatment for receiving organs", check out Whose Organs are these anyway? [http://reason.com/archives/2003/06/26/whose-organs-are-they-anyway], because it seems that the medical establishment hate the idea)

One reason there's a shortage of organs is there's no incentive to donate.

Your body is your own, like your other assets. You should have the right to decide what will be done with it when you die. You should be allowed to sell your body parts with the proceeds going to the recipients of your choice once you're dead. The government can't seize all of your assets upon your death and distribute them to people who aren't as well off as you were, and they shouldn't be allowed to seize your organs. If the government is EVER allowed to seize your organs on death, what'll stop them from taking a kidney or lung from you while you're alive? Don't worry, if your remaining organ has problems, they can always seize a spare from somebody else, right?

Do you think the surgeon doing the transplant is working for free? Do you think the nurses are working for free? Do you think that the janitor who changes the lights in the operating room is working for free? Do you think that the person who manufactured the scalpels, the operating table, and every other piece of hardware donated them free of charge? Do you think the people matching organ donors with needy recipients are doing that for free? Stop paying all of those people for their work, and see how many organs get transplanted.

You need food to eat. Do you expect farmers to work for free because people will die if they don't provide food?

Sure, I won't need money or organs if I'm dead, but I can think of SOMEBODY who I wouldn't mind getting a bit of extra money from my organs. If they're so vital, then surely it's no hardship for somebody to pay for them (and there are already existing medical assistance programs for people who need medical treatment and have no money). And I'll happily give a lung or kidney to a friend or relative in need while I'm alive, but I'll be a LOT more reluctant to do so for a stranger for free.

Everybody involved with organ donations is making money off the process except the most important person: the DONOR (and the recipient, although you can argue that their payment consists of an extended lifespan). You can thank the Federal Government for that here in the US.
In other words, right now, thanks to the government, the value of an organ to it's current owner is artificially set to $0.00. Let the government declare that the price of a bushel of corn is $0.00 and see what happens to the supply of corn.

If you want to encourage any sort of desired behavior, incentivize it. Every parent in the world understands this. Pay money to live recipients. Pay money to the family of dead ones. Offer to cover funeral costs. Offer SOME incentive for people to donate, and you'll see an increase in the supply.

For anybody who's wondering: I donate blood every eight weeks, I'm signed up as an organ donor, and I'm on the bone marrow donors list, and I'm not making a cent from any of it. That doesn't mean that I think that the basic laws of economics don't apply to organ donations, I just chose to be a donor despite the government's irrational approach to the issue.

 

[Periodic]

Alas, I would personally agree, and I would succumb to such a system. Honestly.

As though you need a system in place to donate your money to charity rather than wasting it on frivolities. Are you also not an organ donor simply because it isn't required of you?

I mean good god. Who the hell would say something so delusional and self-aggrandizing?

 

[Aprilgold]

I don't know why, but if I die, I'd rather have my organs taken from me, without my consent, I'm dead, no reason preventing it. And on the religion thing, I was catholic for a little bit and the big man has no reason to send ya' to hell for this, your helping people out who need it, but there is one reason this shouldn't happen.... As sad as this is, donating even 1 organ is saving one life, so it BEING mandatory means that organs will go over the amount of people, and aids could / would be transferred like that if not checked. The main reason that it should just be a voulenteer thing is because the human race needs a trimming, seriously, thats my issue with it, overpopulation, I don't want to know that I'm pushing more people into the world, causing the overpopulation to increase, dooming my fellow man. I guess for every 10 years they would do it for a year, that way plenty of death and lives being saved, that would work hopefully.

And to point this out I love the idea, but the over population thing scares me.

 

[Mrrrgggrlllrrrg]

An opt-out system would be nice, certainly progressive.


But personally, mandatory would be the way to go. If someones organs are healthy enough to save a life then by the gods it should save a life. Harvest the life prisoners if they meet requirements. Simply put lives are more important than someones feelings about it when they're alive. Not like their feelings matter all too much when they die anyways.

 

[rutger5000]

But if You are looking for a model where the free market decides, look no further than India, which actually banned free organ trade a few years back after having had it for a long time due to pretty gross exploitations of people (buying kidneys for $1000, selling for $32000, for example. Or harvestation without consent during operations to sell them off later).

The existence or non-existence of a ban does NOT in and of itself make for a free market, a condition that has NEVER existed in India. The ban did not *end* these "injustices"--the black market is alive and well in India because what India lacks is a vital component of a free market: impersonal rights-respecting government. (Yes, that's right, you need a proper government for the free market to operate.) And if buying a kidney for $1000 and selling it for $32000 (totally ignoring the ENORMOUS cost of removal, transport, prep, etc that goes into that) is unjust, then how exactly is buying a kidney for NOTHING and selling it for $200,000 (about the going price in the U.S.) a BETTER demonstration of justice? And keep in mind that ALL organs procured in the U.S. are procured by GOVERNMENT agencies (OPO's). That money ain't profit; it barely covers costs.

In fact, due in part to the perpetually cash-strapped state of those OPO's, many, many organs that people would otherwise be happy to see used go unharvested. (It's not cost-effective for a single agency that *has* to cover an entire state to visit every podunk hospital in whereverthehellthisisville. They concentrate on major cities.) On the other hand, with tissue (which is harvested by non-government companies--all SIX of them in the U.S.--and those six sure as heck don't COVER the U.S., their expansion, development and coverage is limited by required not-for-profit status, so they can't reinvest earnings back into the company and expand that way, they have to beg for DONATIONS in order to increase their size and coverage) many products actually experience a market GLUT. The tissue bank I worked for actually threw out a lot of procured fascia (which is used in a number of soft-tissue surgeries) because nobody would buy the stuff; we got in WAY more of it than anyone had any use for. The only thing we were perpetually short of was skin, and this wasn't due to a huge demand for skin, per se, but instead due to the fact that we priced it WELL below what the market would normally support, turning it into a cheap throwaway one-use product for lazy hospitals and doctors looking to conserve their stores of the otherwise vastly-superior (and more expensive) artificial products out there. (Yes, the artificial stuff is actually *superior* to the "real" stuff. It's even better to use the person's own skin, but large-scale skin injuries can make this impossible, and even with smaller-scale stuff it's not always advisable to inflict further injury on the person.) If we hadn't sold at an "EVERYTHING MUST GO!!" price, there wouldn't have been much of a market for it at all.

I could go on and on like this. The distortion of the market for these products by incredibly stupid legislation is literally too absurd to be believed. It amazes me that the "solution" most people propose is to take that situation and MAKE IT WORSE by yet more ill-considered legislation, when getting RID of the whole stupid mess is ultimately the only thing that will "fix" it. Granted, it may not "fix" it in a manner that some people with an agenda would like, but the system will be sanely based on reality instead of the variant whims of legislators, and that's a definite improvement.

And isn't making donation mandatory PRECISELY "harvestation (sic) without consent"? You'd better get yourself straightened out about precisely what you're in favor of, here.

It's immoral to buy or sell organs or any live saving medicine. It creates a divide between the people that can pay to safe their lives and the people that can't. No government should ever cave in to such a pratice and legalize it. Baning the trade for organs is not to prevent it, but because it is simpely wrong to do otherwise. Tax money should pay for organ donation.
A case can be made for a living person selling one of his kidneys. Personally I'm also against that, but I can understand arguments to allow it.
Of course donation should never be made mandatory. It is different to give people the right to op out instead of asking people to op in. Making everyone a organ donor, unless they state otherwise seems like a good idea to me.

 

[rutger5000]

Okay, couple of things:


~Sylv

Wow that is one of the best supports I've ever seen for any opinion. (Yes that makes me sad too). I already had the same opinion as you, but if I hadn't I would have it now.