Organ donation

For me is all very simple, once you die all your organs will go wasted, why something should be wasted when could change other people's lives?
How these people live their lives, well, we can't control it; but it’s really a shame that something that precious can end up as ashes or eaten by worms.

Much like Dov I've been progressively liquifying my innards over the past 20 years, but once Im dead, Im dead. I dont give rats arse what happens to my body before it becomes worm food. If someone can benefit from some of my bits, then they are welcome to them. I dont care if Im buggered six ways from Sunday as long as it puts a smile on someones face.

:D

My donor card says all my organs are available but not to piss heads or smack heads who have destroyed their own through abuse. Whether they will take that seriously who knows

In seriousness, that's not going to be taken much notice of. Firstly anyone who is a habitual and current drug user isn't going to make it far enough up the transplant list to merit a donation. Secondly anyone who has damaged their organs through use of drugs or alcohol but is no longer using will be given equal consideration as the patient will be considered reformed.

Transplant boards are hard pressed to take into consideration a donors wishes because in such an intangible arena it is next to impossible to draw a reasonable ethical line. Afterall someone who has destroyed and organ through use of heroin may still be able to bring about world peace or discover a cure for cancer. Can't let them die because you're a bit picky.

Afterall someone who has destroyed and organ through use of heroin may still be able to bring about world peace or discover a cure for cancer.

Although to be fair, it's not hugely likely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTa3b0tROrg

In the UK, from experience, the hospital don't ask if the person wishes to donate.

What bought this on is watching the TV advert about organ donation. The advert mentions that many would accept an organ but not give one.

Its the oddest thing as I feel for some reason, may be religious, that I want to be buried whole. Maybe its something about the afterlife, if there is one. I see myself as quite a rational person yet can seem to be rational in this case. I looked in to many religions and did the buddhist thing of seeing corpses that had been dead a day a week a month two months six months and a year. So the understanding of the body is a vessle sort of thing but seem to be stuck.

lynx,

Have you kept all of your toenail clipping ever and every hair that has fallen out of your head (about 20 a day I think on average). Have you collected each gob of spit, each snot rocket and every bit of chunder from a mental night out? Do you keep all of your turds and jack off into a special container so that one day in the future when you are no longer able to appreciate it every atom that has ever been a part of you can be buried in the same place?

If not, what's the difference between the biological material above and say something that has a primary function is simply to ensure that certain fluid in your body keep moving around regardless of whether those fluids are good for you or bad for you? Or something that ensures that the light from external sources is refracted in a manner that your brain can understand?

In the UK, from experience, the hospital don't ask if the person wishes to donate.

There is a complex set of ethical issues around doing this in treatment. It's not because the hospitals or their staff aren't aware of donation issues, but because of a general NHS perspective on patient rights.

Actually, here's one for you lynx. Say a close relative contracted a medically incurable condition that was imminently life threatening. You, by some form of bizarre providence are the only match for them to have a kidney transplant, the only procedure that will save them from a premature death. Would you reject their request for an organ that you can quite reasonably spare?

Actually, here's one for you lynx. Say a close relative contracted a medically incurable condition that was imminently life threatening. You, by some form of bizarre providence are the only match for them to have a kidney transplant, the only procedure that will save them from a premature death. Would you reject their request for an organ that you can quite reasonably spare?

I honestly don't know. I'm missing bits of my body already so don't understand where this fear/feeling comes from.

Its also they wouldn't want my kidneys

Its also they wouldn't want my kidneys

You say that now, but if it meant the difference between a month to live and a year to live, I reckon they would.

I worry that donating organs will affect me in my zombie afterlife.

(I'm a registered donor in Canada - haven't really looked into it here. Checking out the link now).

Actually, here's one for you lynx. Say a close relative contracted a medically incurable condition that was imminently life threatening. You, by some form of bizarre providence are the only match for them to have a kidney transplant, the only procedure that will save them from a premature death. Would you reject their request for an organ that you can quite reasonably spare?

Then again, we are all probably a match for someone.

Under recent legislation, you can donate a kidney to a complete stranger if you want to.

As far as I can see, every ethical and moral argument points to donating, and thereby saving a life with an organ that, to most of us, is basically a spare. I can't think of any convincing reasons at all against doing it.

On the other hand, I haven't done it.

I want to go with all of me intact, i dont know what happens when the lights go out, but id be gutted to get there and discover i couldnt drink as i dont have a liver/couldnt ride cos i dont have a heart/ couldnt lie in a field and watch clouds as i dont have eyes.

Unless it was my family in which case then I'd share.

I used to have a Viz Donor card which had an option on the back to tick which said "take anything but the nuts" ha! ..anyhoo signed up lets see what some one can do with a fucked liver and two busted kidneys, maybe I donate my head of thick hair to a bald man.

Hello!

I want to go with all of me intact, i dont know what happens when the lights go out, but id be gutted to get there and discover i couldnt drink as i dont have a liver/couldnt ride cos i dont have a heart/ couldnt lie in a field and watch clouds as i dont have eyes.

Unless it was my family in which case then I'd share.

I'd love to believe that this was sarcastic. Or that somehow you are posting from Ancient Egypt.

I'm on the organ donor register.
And recently got myself on the bone marrow one.
This one scares me as you dont have to be dead for it and apparently it hurts like fuck.
Havent been contacted yet tho....

I'm on the organ donor register.
And recently got myself on the bone marrow one.
This one scares me as you dont have to be dead for it and apparently it hurts like fuck.
Havent been contacted yet tho....

I wouldn't worry too much. I have been on the bone marrow list for 7 years and nobody has contacted me yet.

I dont' give a crap what happens to my body after I die, except that out of consideration for the earth I'd prefer to rot in the ground than pollute the air by being cremated. Personally I'll donate whatever is needed to whomever needs it. (But I'm not donating anything while I'm alive. What if you donate a healthy kidney, but then your remaining kidney fails?)

Oddly though I feel distinctly queasy at the thought of being a recipient of a donated organ.

I suspect that is the opposite of the normal reaction.

Incidentally, @The Seldom Killer, what if you donated an organ, saving the life of a person that then went on to become a terrible and vicious tyrant, who performed breathtaking acts of genocide and general evil? Would that make organ donation wrong?

I'd love to believe that this was sarcastic. Or that somehow you are posting from Ancient Egypt.

I hope the latter. The possibility sounds cool.

I want to go with all of me intact, i dont know what happens when the lights go out, but id be gutted to get there and discover i couldnt drink as i dont have a liver/couldnt ride cos i dont have a heart/ couldnt lie in a field and watch clouds as i dont have eyes.

Unless it was my family in which case then I'd share.

Just to return to this - if you're represented in the afterlife* by your body's state when you die, then surely it doesn't matter whether you organs are removed after that point?

If you're represented by your body's state as it is currently is on earth, then cremation's out unless you want to be a big cloud of ash. If you get buried then you'll soon be wandering around heaven looking like a George Romero extra. The only answer is mumification, in which case you have your brain and all your internal organs removed, anyway.

*doesn't exist, by the way.

what if you donated an organ, saving the life of a person that then went on to become a terrible and vicious tyrant, who performed breathtaking acts of genocide and general evil? Would that make organ donation wrong?

Truly an intractable moral conundrum.

I want to be buried whole.

You won't be. It'll be your corpse. When you're dead, it'll no longer be you.

Definitely not bothered who gets my organs after I'm gone, if, by my dying, I can extend even one person's life by a day, that's a good thing. I sure as hell don't need organs after I'm dead.

Sort-of related: English people can't give blood in France if they spent more than 12 months in the UK while mad cow disease was going on. I am annoyed!