Organ Donation

M

Margaret Pilkington

Beacon of light
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What are your views regarding the proposals to change the law over Organ Donation?
The current situation is that you opt in if you want to donate your organs after your death.
This will change so that your organs maybe harvested unless you have opted out of organ donation.

Now, I have carried a donor card for as long as I can remember, but if this becomes law, then I will opt out.
Why? I hear you ask.
Well it implies that my human remains belong to the state...I dislike this thought...so it is the principle.

This is a contentious issue and I know that the discussion with relatives of deceased persons is a difficult one...and often comes at a particularly difficult time.
I also appreciate that there are not enough organ donations, but I feel that this is not the way to tackle it...education is the way forward.

I have, throughout my life, tried to make a positive difference...through choice.
I think this removes my choice and the government will rely on inertia...the laziness of people will solve the problem for them.
So you may say that my choice is still there...and in a sense it is.
( I will use it, but many will put off making the choice actively)
I am perverse I know, but the government should NOT assume consent.
 
I agree completely Margaret.To be honest i dont give a stuff what anyone thinks,i got my own mind,
 
Yes, that was my approach too, well except the burning...(they can put me in dog food, drop me into the sea...but please no burning)but I resent the fact that the government seem to think that they have power over my earthly remains...and for that reason I will opt out.
 
Margaret Pilkington said:
What are your views regarding the proposals to change the law over Organ Donation?
The current situation is that you opt in if you want to donate your organs after your death.
This will change so that your organs maybe harvested unless you have opted out of organ donation.

Now, I have carried a donor card for as long as I can remember, but if this becomes law, then I will opt out.
Why? I hear you ask.
Well it implies that my human remains belong to the state...I dislike this thought...so it is the principle.

This is a contentious issue and I know that the discussion with relatives of deceased persons is a difficult one...and often comes at a particularly difficult time.
I also appreciate that there are not enough organ donations, but I feel that this is not the way to tackle it...education is the way forward.

I have, throughout my life, tried to make a positive difference...through choice.
I think this removes my choice and the government will rely on inertia...the laziness of people will solve the problem for them.
So you may say that my choice is still there...and in a sense it is.
( I will use it, but many will put off making the choice actively)
I am perverse I know, but the government should NOT assume consent.
Click to expand...
I don't think we need bother Margaret, especialy me, all my bits an pieces are well past thur sell by date.
I don't want cremating either, like the cannibals use to say when they cooked a missionary "white long pig" thats what a body smell like in a fire, some bodies cooking bacon, its a right pong.
Like thee am going to be buried, hopefuly not alive.
 
Well, yes Retlaw, I think we do need to bother, because the government are longing for us 'not to bother'...and if this goes through what else might they assume that we consent to.
I know that you are saying that old organs would not be harvested...but they might if they offered a short term solution and they were compatible donors.
How long might it be before every baby born, has and HLA test to determine its ability to be matched.
Even if those under 18 are exempt unless they specify that they want to donate...an HLA database would be useful.

No...I will be opting out.
 
in theory i am one that believes in having to opt out. i,m one that wants to donate my organs but just too lazy to get a donor card. my only worry is where the government gets involved there could be cases of people being actually allow to die if their organ is wanted in an emergency. as for the rest of my body they can do what they want with it when i snuff it as i won,t be around to complain.
 
Margaret Pilkington said:
Well, yes Retlaw, I think we do need to bother, because the government are longing for us 'not to bother'...and if this goes through what else might they assume that we consent to.
I know that you are saying that old organs would not be harvested...but they might if they offered a short term solution and they were compatible donors.
How long might it be before every baby born, has and HLA test to determine its ability to be matched.
Even if those under 18 are exempt unless they specify that they want to donate...an HLA database would be useful.

No...I will be opting out.
Click to expand...
Okay Margaret tha meks a good point, then in that case them as removes thi bits and pieces, and them as wants em should also contribute to our funeral costs.

I don't know how funeral costs have got so high, Faythur one day back in the 1980's said mek me a coffin, so I measured him up and bingo one coffin for dad, it was stood in our front room for ages, he used to come up for his tea on Sundays, and he'd stand in it an say "aye thadul do me thas med a good job".
Then when they released his body I hired a van, went up to Accy Vic, and had a right struggle to get the old ****** in the box, then drove up to the crem handed in the paper work, then loaded him onto the trolley an pushed him round to the conveyor belt shuved him on, then put the trolley back by the door, took the van back to the hire place in Grange Lane, an that were it, all for less than £50.
Not exactly as Faythur wanted, he said tek me up Whinney Hill tut tip, but I did me best.
 
Yes, I carried a donor card for a while, the registered online, but I will be asking for my name to be removed from the list if the new regulations go ahead.

It is about the principle of assumed consent.
When you have any kind of surgery, the doctor has to give you information that you can understand so that you can make 'informed consent'...the hospital does not assume that because you have turned up, you give your consent.
 
Personally, I think it's a great idea and I hope they introduce it. If it means more organs are available to save peoples' lives, that's fine by me.
 
Well, on that one we will have to differ Steve.
I think the intention is good, but the execution is flawed.
Consent should always be informed and sought, it should never be presumed.
My earthly overcoat does not belong to the government...and while, once dead I won't need it...that does not mean the government can have it.
 
The government won't have it, Margaret, seriously ill people who want a chance to keep on living will have it (or at least the useable bits of it!). However, it's a personal choice. For myself, I'm far more concerned that any property or assets that I leave behind go to my loved ones and not the government. As for my body, they can do what they want with it and if any of it can be of use to someone else, that's fine by me.
 
Wynonie Harris said:
The government won't have it, Margaret, seriously ill people who want a chance to keep on living will have it (or at least the useable bits of it!). However, it's a personal choice. For myself, I'm far more concerned that any property or assets that I leave behind go to my loved ones and not the government. As for my body, they can do what they want with it and if any of it can be of use to someone else, that's fine by me.
Click to expand...
Nowt wrong wi that its yer own choice,mine is same as MrsPs,
 
Wynonie Harris said:
The government won't have it, Margaret, seriously ill people who want a chance to keep on living will have it (or at least the useable bits of it!). However, it's a personal choice. For myself, I'm far more concerned that any property or assets that I leave behind go to my loved ones and not the government. As for my body, they can do what they want with it and if any of it can be of use to someone else, that's fine by me.
Click to expand...

Ok, so it won't go to the government, but it is government initiative to solve the low levels of organ donation.
It will be the government who will change the law which makes a deceased's body available for the harvesting of organs without real consent.
They will assume that if you do not opt out(through inertia) that you consent.
That is NOT consent. It is unethical.

Does it not make you uncomfortable that if they assume ownership of your remains, then they may assume your consent over other issues?

Inertia is a ploy used by commercial enterprises...they figure that if you do not act, then you are OK to fall into line.

I get that there are people out there who need organs to be donated in order to live.
I worked in the NHS for almost thirty years, so of course I know what a lack of resources(in this case, organs) means in real terms.
All that said, I do not think this is the way to address the issue.
The way forward is to get people to WANT to donate their organs after death.
The way to do this is education...and having the awkward conversation about death.

And yes, of course it is your personal choice Steve...as long as you are allowed to make that choice.
 
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What I'm uncomfortable with is the fact that there are people with long and fruitful lives ahead of them dying because of a lack of available organs, caused, not because people have some strongly held principle, but simply through sheer apathy and inertia. As far as I'm concerned, the change in the law would be a good one simply because it will make more organs available and thus save lives. At the same time, people like yourself who feel strongly against it will have the freedom to opt out. To me that's a win-win situation.
 
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