Donations welcome but not compulsory
Sunday, January 13, 2008 Some time ago I invited comments on the issue of organ donation. Influenced, perhaps, by the fact that my father had to wait 18 months and very nearly died before a suitable donor could be found for a heart transplant, I expressed support for the idea that everyone should be placed on the donor register - unless they choose to opt out.
No-one, so far as I can recall, supported my view. Indeed, several people (smokers, presumably) said they were ready to rip up their donor cards if they continued to be victimised. I was impressed by this response not because I think it is right (they would, after all, be taking their anger out on the wrong people) but because it demonstated the depth of resentment many feel towards the present government.
Anyway, the subject has once again raised its head with Gordon Brown said to be in favour of a system of "presumed consent". This has aroused considerable comment including a lively debate on Iain Dale's blog, HERE. Iain writes:
My body belongs to me, not the government, nor the NHS. I carry a donor card. I have made a free choice that in the event of any of my body parts being useful to someone else in the event of my death, someone else is welcome to them. I made an active choice. Gordon Brown is now proposing that there should be presumed consent and that people would have to opt out if they didn't want their organs used. If this is allowed to go through it will set a very dangerous precedent and it will be a further diminution of the freedom of the individual to make an informed choice.
It's not something I feel strongly about but I can see that other people do and I am slowly changing my mind in favour of the "voluntary" option based on freedom of choice. It is important that people who support "freedom of choice" do so right across the board, not just on issues we care about. If you're a genuine libertarian you can't pick and choose which issues to support (although you can put them in perspective).
It is however important that if you want to voluntarily register to donate organs after your death it should be made as easy as possible to do so - and next of kin should not (in my view) be allowed to impede the process. Iain has published a link to "How to become a donor" and I am happy to do the same. Click HERE.
Reader Comments (25)
This is a very emotive subject, and to make the population feel guilty enough to do exactly as the Governments wants is the idea. A dangerous ideology for all of us.
In life and now death,they wont leave us alone.
I have carried a donor card since I don't know when and have donated nearly 70 lots of blood. I have 'joked' about smokers and not donating organs and blood, but as you say we would be hurting the wrong people. I believe that everybody should donate, unless they have a really good reason.
Think your mind and body are your own... property? Shoulda checked the EULA
Unfortunately, I sent my blood and organ donor cards back to Ms Hewitt (Health Secretary at the time) just before the imposition of the smoking ban on 1st July 2007 - duly ripped up.
One of the reasons was, of course, my disgust at the end of choice for smoking venues, but, more importantly, was the talk of the conditionality of NHS treatment for smokers. This is still on Gordon Brown's agenda and should be vehmently resisted.
As for opt-out for organ donation, I am totally opposed to this idea - HMG does not own my body. New Labour appears to make a complete hash of computerised registration systems, which will no doubt lead to someone's organs being removed by mistake, mark my word.
Yes, Gordan, you can have my organs on my death, but they are conditional on you dropping the proposed discrimination against smokers and access to NHS treatment and, in addition, amending the smoking ban to allow choice.
I would suggest New Labour divert the millions that are being used for anti-smoking propaganda to campaigns encouraging more people to become organ donors - on a voluntery basis.
Bill.
Is there not a parallel here with dying intestate and therefore potentially leaving one's wealth and property to the state?
The proposal of organ donation opt out still allows individuals to bequeath their organs to the grave yard or crematorium but in the absence of that why shouldn't they be used to save someone's life?
One of the problems at the moment, in the absence of a donor card, is that it is up to doctors to broach the subject with grieving relatives at a very awkward and possibly insensitive time. It might be easier all round if it was down to next of kin to state 'by the way doctor, for personal reasons we particularly don't want any of our loved one's organs being removed for whatever purpose.' That should then be respected without any further discussion.
Whichever side people take on this issue we need to decide which is the greater problem - the risk of offending some people's feelings or how to solve the challenge of a desperate shortage of donor organs.
What is the life span of organ recipients?
How it is possibly to know that someone will live longer with transplanted organ than with has own even in the case that transplantation is successful?
What is percentage of successful transplantation – this that doesn’t end fatally?
Does transplantation industry make much worse misery than what it solves?
Will increased availability of donors result in epidemic of unnecessary transplantation.
I know that asking any question about transplantations industry is a blasphemy, and I’ll be thankful if someone gives answer on any question above.
The notion that in refusing organ donation one is hitting the wrong people has a point. However, this will also be used for the purposes of emotional blackmail.
With regard to smokers, they pay not only their NI contributions but billions in extra tax that the government gains not just from the direct sales of over the counter cigarettes but also from the corporation tax levied on the profits of the tobacco companies. The latter fact pertaining to corporation tax is frequently ignored even by pro-choice activists including Forest.
It is interesting that there are those who say that in refusing to make their organs available smokers are being heartless, BUT, the same people are not out making the point that the government's expressed intent to disallow smokers NHS treatment, despite the fact they have paid for it many times over is not only heartless but fraudulent and criminal. If one had a contract with a private health provider who then tried to deny treatment, that provider would find itself facing both civil and criminal actions: the civil being breach of contract and the criminal being fraud and theft.
In addition, it may interest people to know that there have already been cases in the US of smokers' lungs being given to needy recipients. So when it comes to organs, then anyone may be considered as a donor including the "filthy' smokers.
Weighing all this up and considering the position in the round, I shall not be prepared to allow the government to help itself to my organs and will opt out of any such government scheme. With further regard to this point the only organs of mine they may have are my old mouth organs (harmonicas).
Penultimately, there has been plenty of furore in the recent past about surgeons in childrens' hospitals just helping themselves to the organs of other deceased children. The furore should have happened as there is something singly and intuitively disturbing about others helping themselves to someone's body parts without their express permission. Death is a painful time for most relatives and loved ones and the fact that this government now intends to regard such a time as an opportunity for spare parts is revolting.
There can only be one way that organs may be obtained and that is with the clear consent of the donor or, at the very least the donor's nearest and dearest. If there is a lack of donors, then as a previous poster has observed, the government should stop wasting so much time on quangos and other health Nazi organisations and spend that money on educating people on the merits of organ donation!
Quote:
“Penultimately, there has been plenty of furore in the recent past about surgeons in childrens' hospitals just helping themselves to the organs of other deceased children.”
Blad Tolstoy,
Do you have any reference that confirms this statement or is it only the myth created by the transplantation industry.
How many doctors you know that are diagnosed as candidate for organ replacement and how many of them are organs recipient.
Does anybody know or have an idea how medical professionals make decision that particularly patient need an organ replacement?
The issue of organ donation is indeed an emotive one. For a patient waiting for a transplant there is the unpleasant fact that their own lives depend on the loss of someone elses to be faced. I would not be an organ donor because I do not trust the medical profession further than I can spit.If I could be absolutely certain I would indeed be dead before the knives came out I might reconsider my position, but for the time being and as long as there is money to be made from organ transplantation then no thanks.
Funny thing, they never asked me if I smoked when I donated blood, but they always ask me if I smoke when I attend a hospital for treatment. Since the only time I have been to our local hospital is to see the dermatologist I think this is a bit odd.
Well said Blad!
I have never been keen on the idea of organ donation - I just have an abhorence of a loved one's body being mutilated, or mine come to that.
Howeve, I am definitely with those smokers who say, sorry to those that may need the organs, but if we smokers are not good enough to receive treatment from the NHS, despite the billions we pay in taxes, then our body parts are not good enough to be used! This bloody government want to have their cake and eat it, well it is about time they learned they can't always have their own way!
Just look at the recent reports on binge drinking, on how many thousands are treated each year for drink related illnesses or injuries and how many of those are under age, yet the government have put prices up and still under age people manage to get hold of drink. The government have now increased the age for smoking, but when they cannot control the sale of drink to under age drinkers, just how do they think they can control the sale of cigarettes? If they had brains, they would be extremely dangerous!
This is a huge opportunity for mass protest against both the smoking ban and the NHS treatment of smokers; and it can be long running and cumulative - not like lighting up in a pub, which is forgotten after a couple of days. I ripped up my donor card last night while listening to some dreadful woman on a Radio5live debate.
If this government thinks they own your body and can take your body parts when one dies, I would like to say they can have the funeral bill as well!!!!!! Apart from that if they deny smokers drinkers and obese people from recieviing NHS treatment, ( which is fraud ) I wouldnt blame any body in this category to opt out of this system which i consider is going to far by this controlling government.I do believe in organ donation but it should still be the patients wish not government law.How dare this government keep on interfering into everyone's personal life the quicker this government is slung out of office it will do the country no end of good. This country is getting worse then russia to live Labour want to control everything and everybody and its about time we had a general strike to protest to how we are being treated.
The more this bloody government tries to demand from me and compel me, the more I shall withhold and resist.
It seems that only the government isn’t protected from criticising.
Obligatory organ donation isn’t government idea.
As people “believe” in organ replacements (anyway it is not question of science but question of belief) the government have to do what the organ replacements professional asking for.
Nowadays, no government in the world will stay longer in duty if it confront to the lobby that claim to promote better health.
Nowadays it is fashion to publicly criticize the government, but to ask any question about usefulness of some medical treatment is seen as a blasphemy.
I have impression that people don’t like when government intend to introduce obligatory organ donation because they like to do on their own, while in this case (they hope) they will get more sympathy from “organ replacements professionals” (in case they need it).
Robert Evans draws a useful parallel when he mentions intestacy. In effect, if you fail to draw up your own Will you opt in to the one that HMG has drawn up for you.
A poster on Iain Dale's blog has raised the issue of the "rights" of a dead body and, correctly, states that the law does not recognise any property in a dead body. This gives rise to the strange anomaly that an Executor is not legally bound to honour the wishes of the deceased in disposing of the body unless the deceased has stated in his Will that he does not wish cremation which the Exeutor is legally bound to honour. Perhaps presumed consent would be seen in law as only an extension of this notion of having to opt out.
Personally I'm against presumed consent on the same grounds as other posters: my body belongs to me while alive and it is only courtesy to seek my permission to remove parts of it when I'm dead! Another poster on Iain's blog suggested that there is a shortage of donors mainly because people are too lazy to opt in in which case there should be no problem in having people opt out by having a tick box on, say, the electoral register form. Apart from it being outrageously presumptious to assume that "most people wouldn't mind", given the general incompetence of LAs and HMG, I'd rather have an opt in tick box and a presumption that one has not opted in unless it's expressly stated.
Plainly Luke, you and many others have short memories.
The scandal hit Alder Hey children's hospital in 2002.
See here for one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/dec/17/alderhey.cancercare
By the way, I never repeat rumours without saying something is rumoured to be the case. If I say something has happened, it has!
The children's organs were not taken for the doctors' own use but for the purposes of research. The key point is that they were retained without permission and it caused outrage.
In addition, a presumed consent policy will be wide open to abuse. To tempt certain clinicians with the possibility of allowing or facilitating the death of A so that B, who may be considered a more cost effective option, may receive organs and live, may be too much of a temptation for some to overcome.
For the record, see more organs theft references:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1136723.stm
http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article247579.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1027564.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/background_briefings/the_bristol_heart
_babies/455738.stm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1671944.ece
There are many, many more, so read and weep. No, no , no, to presumed consent!!!!!
Quote:
“The children's organs were not taken for the doctors' own use but for the purposes of research.”
Blad Tolstoy, this sentence explains to me what you mean.
If I am only one that misunderstood what you were saying in your previous post, than in this case I truly apologise to you.
By the way, in my previous posts I have asked everybody a few questions and I will be thankful if someone can provide the answer to any of them.
I don't see why the government does not rename itself Burke and Hare. I am sitting on the fence a bit myself here, quite unlike me. The point about denying smokers treatment is pursuasive, but if it was one of my children in need of a life saving transplant, I may be more generous to Nu Labour. Also if Nu Labour want to do something the default button in my mind is that it must be wrong.
I agree with Marie. I don't trust the medical profession further than I can spit either. Same goes for the government.
As others have said, if we smokers are not good enough to be treated with dignity and respect in life, precisely because of what we're allegedly doing to our organs, why the hell should we offer them up at the end? If what we're told about our 'destructive habit' is true, then what possibly use could they be anyway?
Something doesn't fit.
Point taken about your children needing organs Dave (Atherton). However, how would you feel if you discovered that your child whad been harvested for organs without your consent - as was the case both in Alder Hey and Bristol?
Even though you might also think that it was a good thing spmeone else's life had been saved, the issue of permission should be paramount for our bodies are not the property of the state either, even though the state may have delusions about being God.
The general trend with the medical profession and the government is now becoming sinister.
They want to control the way we live our lives (and in detail) and now we are supposed to have no say even in what happens to our bodies, and all of course in the name of health.
Yes this is the Big Pharma sponsored utopia nightmare: the creation of a mechanistic, souless ubermensch subject in every respect to Big Pharma's agent on earth: the medical profession.
Blad, I think we are beginning to meet half way here. Why at Alder Hey and Bristol the doctors did not have the basic manners of asking is beyond me. I think the lynch pin for me is the government's motives here, is it altruism (you are having a laugh) or is it as you quite rightly comment, about control. Personally may I go on record as saying in the event of my death, help yourself. All I request is that as long as I can inhale and inbibe I can have a fag and a glass of red and not be forced outside of the hospital. Anything else hands off.
I think the before anything also it need to discus does organ replacement save the life.
Trying to defend people’s right and in same time glorifying the organ replacement as mean that saving the life I find pointless.
People should not hope that health of their own or health of their children will be more assured by organ replacements industry before they don’t know nothing about science on witch is based this medical practice.
The first concern should be; will we or our children one day be object of unnecessary organ replacement surgery where perfectly healthy organ is replaced.
The small percentage of doctors are involved in organ replacement business and as far as I know no one of them have ever undergo any replacement surgery or they never diagnosed other medical professionals or nearest member of other medical professionals as candidate for organ replacement.
With presumed consent, every patient will be a potential donor. God help us if we are ill. Will the NHS evaluate whether it is more cost effective to let us die and remove our organs rather than spend money on saving our lives.
Sylvia,
I think we shouldn’t accuse the whole NHS.
Just small percentage of medical professionals is involved in organ replacement business.
On the other side the great percentage of medical professionals (outside of organ replacements profession and a few other medical professions) provides valuable service to the human’s population.
It needs to distinguish between valuable service and service that is product of the money, carer or reputation driven quackery.
I would like to discus the question: Does the organ replacements practice really saves the lives or does it in some case make just worse misery and in some case it create an unnecessary misery.