Comments on: Hello. Uhh, can we have your liver?

By: Aron Stansvik

Aron Stansvik — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:04:32 +0000

I’m with you 100%. I’m a donor and have a card but it was only recently I got it, after having thought from time to time for years that “Right, I should do that” and then forgetting it. I’m an atheist and don’t see how you could have any objections to what happens to your corpse.

By: BenJam

BenJam — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:14:24 +0000

I’ve been calling for this, with my girlfriend, who’s a doctor, for ages! Yay Brownie… now can you please f*ck off and die you tight-fisted scot? (okay think I got carried away…)

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:53:38 +0000

Where I live we just have it on our drivers licence. Family shouldn’t be able to make YOUR choice for you.

By: Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:37:23 +0000

I would like to see an opt-out system, although being an atheist bordering agnostic, I am not sensitive to religous issues and can’t grasp why one would value religion (a best guess affair at best) above saving anothers life at no cost to one-self. That said I was brought up in a free thinking family and so can’t understand why one would choose a pre-organised religion (such as Christianity) above coming to personnal considered conclusions so social conditioning must be much stronger than I’ll ever know leading me to think that people who feel strongly will opt-out but those who are apathetic but want to do the right thing wouldn’t necessarily opt in making it the right way around. opt-out FTW.

By: Bart Cerneels

Bart Cerneels — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:23:05 +0000

Hi Mike,

We have an opt-out organ donor system in Belgium, with a optional registration of your preference. On a TV show just last night was said that Belgium is actually at the top of organ donor statistics. The number of healthy organs has declined in the last decade because of safer traffic, we used to have many young people die in weekend car accidents. A sad side-effect of a good thing.
If someone didn’t register their choice the family can decide what happens with the organs. It’s assumed to be negative when they can not be contacted. So people are encouraged to register their preference to prevent such situations. The TV show wanted more people to register and promised to report if their call-for-action had positive results.

I trust our medical professionals to do the right thing with the “harvested” organs. For instance, they stated that active drinkers or smokers will NEVER, get an organ transplant.
My girlfriend and I already decided to register as positive for organ donor.

Bart

By: David Mills

David Mills — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:18:30 +0000

I think it needs to be said that organ transplant is only possible in a very small percentage of cases, ie those where the brain is destroyed, but the rest of the body isn’t severely injured.

Needless to say that this doesn’t happen all that often, so anything that increases the number of possible donners is a good thing. A lot of transplants don”t happen, because the family just doesn’t know what the donner wanted. Changing Opt-in to Opt-out would solve these cases, and anyone who felt strongly could always put a note on their drivers licence.

David

P.S: Yes I’m a donner, and yes I have a card saying so.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:16:06 +0000

@ethana: Textarea should be fixed now.

By: ElAnonimo

ElAnonimo — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:46:21 +0000

If you distrust the state just a tiny bit, you can see where this could lead to some “interesting” situations.

Someone with a family member in dire need of an organ could very well profit from someone else’s death and that makes this system a bit dangerous.

I am Spanish and, as far as I know, the improvement in donation rates is simply due to better education about the importance of donating your organs and solidarity with other human beings. I could be wrong, but I have not read anywhere that donating is the default after one’s death.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:48:54 +0000

Some interesting responses but I think I still stand where I did in the the post.

@Jonas: Obviously everyone opting in would be ideal but I don’t think it is realistic. People already get the chance when they apply for a driving license (which most adults do) and it is just ticking one box but yet many don’t.

@K.Ralho: You can INCREASE donation by more than 100%.

Personally I think if you couldn’t be bothered to opt-out then you should be eligible for transfer.

By: Lynoure Braakman

Lynoure Braakman — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:55:12 +0000

It depends much on _how_ you can opt-out. Will it be enough to carry a card saying that you opt-out, or will you need to fill a multipage form and submit it to every hospital in the area? Both are opt-out, just very different.