Opt out organ donation system

[Singh.Simran]

This is true with regards to the systems you speak of, such as education. However, we as a 'democratic society' have persevered long and hard to fight for the beliefs of the minorities. Beliefs are an entirely different matter from more general things such as education and rule of law in that they do not need to make sense to all in order to be valid, to that person. That's why we can't vote out the (e.g.) religious or sexual orientation preferences of the minority based on the religions or sexual orientations of the majority.

But we aren't, hence the compromise reached. Were we to vote out their beliefs, which i would not be all too annoyed by, it would be compulsory. Furthermore, rule of law and education are hardly 100% fact non-opinionated subjects; they produce beliefs and some of those beliefs have been overruled. It's the necessary consequence of the system, but the alternative is no countries and anarchy (some may say better...)

Their religious and sexual orientations are wholly private and make no difference to anyone else. This matter makes the difference between life and death. And i think a subscribing member of society, with respect to actions which affect said society, needs to submit to the will of society as to that action. Being gay does not affect society significantly, so they need not submit. Donation does, and so submission for those who do not wish to make their will known by opting-out, is fine by me.

That's my logic.

The problem with the 'pulling out' option is, as previously noted, that it's likely to be passed by, and not just out of sheer laziness - though I imagine this would be a big factor, as with voting. My other half is an attorney currently working in wills & estates. The situations that people go through/leave behind because someone forgot to make a will, or - which is more applicable to this case - CHANGE a will, are at times terrifying. I'd hate to see that in medicine. EVEN if people don't opt out primarily due to laziness, it is unethical to punish their laziness by going against their wishes based on later external assumptions.

My argument is simply that the state/populace benefit overrules personal wish, and that the undesirable consequence of a few people having dont what they did not necessarily want done is permittable loss, as with any strategy. The permittable loss of the current system is MANY people not dontating when they would, and so many people not getting organs they otherwise should. I would say, balancing the evils, that opt-out is less unethical in the long run..

Of course all that is personal opinion, and yours may be that this is one of those areas the state has no say in

Some people believe that their body is not their property, but a vessel they have been entrusted with the care of during their lifetime. I cannot presume to call such a wish a 'long enunciated wish'. Clearly their intent is that their wish endures beyond death. And if we're going to be really philosophical: given that beliefs outlast people and their decaying matter, the beliefs they leave behind ought to be respected above all other things they may leave behind.

My philosophy clearly differs from yours then. A main tenet, or so i am told, is that reality > potentiality, and to me the wishes of a consciousness which no longer inhabits or has any relevance to the object of the wishes, and cannot lose anything from them being changed, certainly fall into the latter category. Of course i still don'y make it compulsory; the people as a whole want these wishes to be regarded hence there is the option. But theoretically at least, i dont think one can argue one's wishes overrule the real, factual, death of a human.

The entire proposal is little more than taking away something of ours by default. That we have the 'option' to refuse is a compensatory detail that distracts from the core issue: that a neutral situation would become intrinsically biased, that a balance would become imbalanced. Is a positive outcome for someone else justified by adding yet more bars to the prisons currently growing up around our personal spheres of existence? We employ such measures in politics and law all the time, but human rights and properties are another matter entirely.

In a society which (by survey) i think the majority are in favour of donation, the current situation is not neutral. It punishes the patients and wastes organs for the large number of people who never register. So at the moment something very worthwhile is taken away "by default". In the converse situation, some people lose "by default", but the numbers of those wishing to be left whole and not opting out in the future are much less than the numbers wishing to be used and not used currently (as the overall number of willing donators > 50%), so the loss "by default" is greater in the current system.

Without evaluating each loss as we did above, and taking "one person cut when it wasnt desired" to roughly = "one person being interred without their organs saving lives".

Finally, we speak of 'majorities'. In reality, the people requiring organs are hardly a 'majority' in terms of the entire population. So, even if you're going to justify this using basic democratic philosophy, you would be acting for the benefit of a minority - and in a way that could contradict the beliefs and preferences of a non-consenting sub-population larger than the one benefiting (because I bet that the number of non-consenting people who neglect opting out would outweigh the number of those needing organs). That is a paradox in itself.

But, the people who might potentially need an organ so would benefit by a greater pool of said, are certainly a majority. I would go so far as it say it might be 100%. Without going into my suggestion that the beleifs and wishes of the sub-population should be seen in light of the more important dying needs of the perhaps smaller sub-population, if we work 1:1 again, you're right on your definitions.

But i think we must look to the future and think it's not just those on the list now but anyone who gets into such a condition then...

[NorthernLight]

Seems to me people are quite blase about assuming that because they don't care what happens to them when they die, it shouldn't be a big deal for anyone else.
The pragmatic argument of the benefits of this scheme outweighing the harms I also find a bit disingenuous . . . after all, if what we wanted to do was save as many lives as possible we'd impose much stricter limitations on the design and use of cars, but we don't . . .
I personally have no problem with organ donation - what I want to know is, if I consent to my organs being used while I'm alive, why on earth does a hospital have to get consent from my next of kin when I'm dead? What is the point of donor cards?!!
I'd sort that point out before moving towards an idea of "presumed consent" which, frankly, I do find a little disturbing . . . for all the good it might do, the principle of it is WRONG WRONG WRONG.

[levantine]

But we aren't, hence the compromise reached.

If people were to miss their chance to opt out - and there will be many of these - then yes, we would be doing that. Just the act of enforcing a condition on a person's choice ( i.e. 'Click X to return to preferred mode of living/dying/burial/etc) IS an infringement. Why should you start life having to make such a choice? Donating is the 'unnatural' choice, as (beneficial as it is) it is nonetheless a medical procedure we carry out when things go wrong. Besides, my greatest worry is that this is the intermediate step preceding less lenient laws, in a world where policies tend to sneak up on us through a multitude of smaller, more moderate steps... call me a pessimist on this front, but I'd rather not take the risk.

Furthermore, rule of law and education are hardly 100% fact non-opinionated subjects; they produce beliefs and some of those beliefs have been overruled.

Of course, but such beliefs are of a different nature to the private (usu. cultural and religious) beliefs of people. Classroom ideals are hardly metaphysical. Beliefs about the eternal fate of your body/soul are, to their advocates. To call into question the validity of the latter in order to impose some policy on others is not ethical.

Their religious and sexual orientations are wholly private and make no difference to anyone else.

Ah, but they do... if you believe you must be buried intact (often a religious belief), they make a difference to those who think you should give them your organs...

And i think a subscribing member of society, with respect to actions which affect said society, needs to submit to the will of society as to that action. Being gay does not affect society significantly, so they need not submit. Donation does, and so submission for those who do not wish to make their will known by opting-out, is fine by me.

This is an extremely unethical and dangerous mindset >_> Where do we draw the line? This is merely the beginning, with the technology currently out there. Furthermore, it's very undemocratic. We are a capitalist society that hardly showers our poorer people with money just because we have a duty to help others, being rich. If we applied this mindset, Africa would be healthy. I'd be all for that, but I'm sure there'll be many a person who will whole-heartedly disagree and cite their right to do as they wish with their wealth. While doctors are supposed to consider resources and wider social implications when making clinical decisions, they aren't ever supposed to impose personal or social demands or values on the patient body.

My argument is simply that the state/populace benefit overrules personal wish

Again, unethical. I bet the state would benefit hugely if alcohol was banned... but we can't dismiss peoples' wishes based on what we perceive to be insight or common sense. The reality is that we often love the things that are going to destroy us and others.

The permittable loss of the current system is MANY people not dontating when they would, and so many people not getting organs they otherwise should.

Then surely we ought to target them better (with information, not propaganda) - just don't run the risk of making the rest of the non-opters pay as well. And you'd be surprised how many people would opt out. This isn't a matter of ratios or percentages - if 100,000 people opted out from a population of millions, those are 100,000 people nonetheless, and just because their number is dwarfed by the consenting crowd doesn't make it any less large or significant. I repeat, other countries have done almost three times as better as us in some cases without enforcing this kind of measure ( e.g. in Spain, families are permitted to refuse donating when approached, despite the law).

A main tenet, or so i am told, is that reality > potentiality, and to me the wishes of a consciousness which no longer inhabits or has any relevance to the object of the wishes, and cannot lose anything from them being changed, certainly fall into the latter category. [...] But theoretically at least, i dont think one can argue one's wishes overrule the real, factual, death of a human.

Respectfully, this is your opinion as you said, yet some people exist in a mindset entirely different to this and see nothing unreal nor non-factual about placing their wishes above their death.

In a society which (by survey) i think the majority are in favour of donation, the current situation is not neutral. It punishes the patients and wastes organs for the large number of people who never register.

To be fair, patients are never 'entitled' to another's organ, hence it is not a 'punishment' if they are not given an organ. They do not receive organs because we HAVE to donate them, they receive them because we WANT to donate them. As soon as we lose sight of this, we become little more than parasites.

At the moment, the system IS neutral, because neutrality is based upon a balance of opportunity/choice, not on majority preference for a specific choice. The thing about organ donation is that it is an unnatural act - I'm not saying it's bad, I'm saying it is a clever human design to deal with nature when nature goes wrong. Thus the system is neutral - you can either to be content with the natural (opting out) default, or donate. If people are too lazy to opt in, wake them up - don't make the opt-outers pay for their laziness.

But, the people who might potentially need an organ so would benefit by a greater pool of said, are certainly a majority.

Actually the number of people currently on the waiting list is nowhere near a 100% of the population (7000-8000 about a year ago), yet the number of people who would rather opt out numbers many times that. The likelihood of 100% of a population requiring an organ donation in their lifetime is medically very small. If we reach such upper limits, then we're a bit screwed, to be honest. If we were to adopt this presumed consent mindset, then the greater our needs, the more hungrily-grabbing we will become, and then we'd lose the spark that makes us human...

I do fully respect your opinion, of course - I would just be very afraid if this kind of mindset were to take charge of our organic resources. Oil, coal, water - human flesh?? Does nobody else see the pattern emerging? I see absolutely NO need to resort to measures THIS drastic when we have quite a few others that we can try first.

I'm putting my hopes in the artificial organ construction crowd... the recent success of half-making a (feebly) beating heart may just blossom into something worthwhile. If we start off with an ethical intent, hopefully we'll end up with an ethical solution. Begin in a shady area and we may well end up drowning in a cascade of progressively more controversial policies and, finally, somewhere awful...

[superdoc19]

I think that an opt out system is a fantastic idea. I myself was considering whether or not to become an organ donor when i was applying for my driving license. Even though before hand i was pro-donation when it cam to checking the donation box i faltered. This was because for one my mum was against it seeing it as a defilement of my body which i just laughed off, but mainly i found it hard to consider plans for my death, as im sure people who are writing will will agree with me. this idea is fantastic in that the brunt work is all ready done for them and that there is less consideration of your death.

I only have one quick question which i hope someone will respond to it may sound a little idiotic but i would like to no.

What happens if everyone becomes organ donors and there is a greater supply than there is demand? Are the additional organs stored? Do they just select the healthiest people to be donors.. how would they decide? Or a farfetched idea, would the organs be 'traded' overseas where they are in desperatley short supply?

[Arch_Angel]

I've no idea what would happen but would be fine with the idea that they would be stored or given away. I also am having trouble trying to justify the government not selling them to other countries too..... maybe that idea wouldn't sit well with people and I guess there'd be problems with less democratic/third world governments selling organs without permission or worse... Personally as long as it ends up going to someone that it can help (included being used in research) then that's fine by me.

I'll be a bit too dead to care at that point anyway.

[superdoc19]

I'll be a bit too dead to care at that point anyway.


lol very true

[superdoc19]

[QUOTE=I'll be a bit too dead to care at that point anyway.QUOTE]

ha thats hw u quote

[superdoc19]

[QUOTE= fff edf wrf wrrs ds]

fsf sff

[superdoc19]

ok forget quoting... just emabrassing myself

[grindlo]

Someone needing an organ is not ENTITLED, per se, to another human being's organ. It is mostly out of love, kindness

spot on levantine. i reckon the key word is donation i.e. an act of giving in kindness. x