To wonder what reasons people give for being willing to accept an organ but not donate

[crashdoll]

What the title says really.

I am happy for all my organs to be donated when I'm gone. I'd also accept an organ transplant if I was in that position. I know there are religious reaons for not donating certain organs but I do wonder how people can rationalise not donating organs if they are willing to accept.

[KatyTheCleaningLady]

I would be happy to donate, but I am ineligible for any donation (even blood) for medical reasons.

[landofsoapandglory]

One evening last week DS2(16) asked me if he could go on the organ donor register. I had a chat with him to make sure he understood what it meant, and as he did I said yes. Both DH and I are on it, as is DS1(18). DS2 asked me to promise him I would carry his wishes out should he die.

I have to say it was a very strange conversation to have with him, but I am glad I have had it. I am proud of him for being mature about it and broaching the subject, and now I know how he feels I think it could make a very, very hard descion slightly easier to make. Not only that, he chatted about it to his friends and some of them have signed up as well.

I, too believe that if you can donate you should donate if you ever intend to take a donated organ.

[ChuffMuffin]

I want to donate everything. It's not like I'm gonna have much use for them if I'm in a position to donate them, am I?

[MrsMorton]

Lots of folk missing the point here I think; IMO if you CAN donate, you should. If you CAN'T, then well, you can't.

My conscience would prick me every day if I was in the first camp but felt it appropriate to accept organs...

[ReindeerBollocks]

merry my DS will one day need a lung transplant. He will never be in a position to donate - his body just wouldn't be suitable, not to mention all the meds pumped into him over the years.

This shouldn't stop people donating, but make them more aware of what people have to endure before they get to transplantation- it really is last resort.

Great news about your cousin - that is amazing.

[Adsss]

For those interested in different religious perspectives on Organ transplant have a look here....
www.chd-uk.co.uk/organ-donation/transplantation-and-religions/

Interestingly somwtimes it is the lack of knowledge of what the consensus of the religion is which leads to a refusal of dontation

[SauvignonBlanche]

What a waste, well done Adsss.

[TandB]

I work with someone who is only alive because the parents of a young man who died, made a generous decision in the awful aftermath of his sudden death.

Because they thought of someone else, even at such a terrible time, a lovely man is alive and healthy today.

I hope that they remember what they did and feel proud that they could make that decision.

If anything happens to me, anyone can have any bit of me that will help them. I won't need it so it might as well go to someone like my colleague.

[clucky80]

I had a double organ transplant 6 years ago. I strongly believe that I wouldn't be here now if I hadn't received the amazing gift of life from an amazing 19 year old boy. I am in regular contact with his mum and I know that she takes a great deal of comfort from the fact that her son has given life to 4 other people.

[LayMizzRarb]

Anyone can have my organs after I die. I have agreed to this in the hope that others lives may be saved/improved. I am not in a position to judge who is worthy of receiving them. If my liver were given to an alcoholic I hope that it would be impetus to try and change their lives for the better.

[searching4serenity]

Is There an age when one's body is no longer useful for organ donation? If reasonably healthy? Just curious...

As for the question - anyone can have my organs

• how amazing to give 1/ several people lives after you've gone! I'm on the register.

[TroublesomeEx]

I've said before that I have some real issues with organ donation.

The idea of taking parts of one person's body and putting them into someone else's body and that person having to take drugs for the rest of their lives to stop their body from rejecting the body parts because they shouldn't really be there just doesn't sit very comfortably with me.

However, if either of my children needed a transplant, I wouldn't hesitate to accept one for them, even though my feelings would be the same. And, as I am not prepared to receive something I wouldn't be prepared to give, I am on the donor register.

My son has said they can have anything except his eyes (he's 14).

[mackerella]

Sorry to repeat my question, but a couple of people have now mentioned being willing to donate anything except eyes. Why? I don't really get why they're different from other body parts, but perhaps my perspective is skewed because DS is visually impaired and we are often asked if he could be "cured" by an eye transplant. (No, they don't exist, especially not for retinal conditions like his, but we would accept them if they did!) My boss has keratoconus and has had a corneal transplant, so I do appreciate the difference it can make for some conditions.

[CloudsAndTrees]

I'm one of those 'selfish hypocrites' that some posters would call me, and I've had this conversation on here more than once because I'm not entirely comfortable with the way I feel about it. But I still think it's my choice.

I donate blood, I am on the bone marrow register, and I would willingly be a living donor for a member of my family, having had a close friend recently donate a kidney to her sibling. But I don't like the idea of parts of my body being taken after I die. I just don't. I'm not comfortable with the thought, and my DH feels the same way I do, so we have agreed that we wouldn't do it if asked.

I would accept an organ because I'm human with a normal human survival instinct. If I had the choice of leaving my children without a mother and my husband a widow, then I think it would be pretty selfish of me to tell them they can do without a mother and wife because of my own personal discomforts.

If that makes me selfish, so be it. They're my organs and I don't have to justify myself to anyone.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

You're cool with other mothers and wives not being able to make that choice though clouds?

You know it won't matter if you feel comfortable or not, right? With being dead and all?

If you think being alive as a wife and mother is so important - and I agree it is! - you should surely be happy to enable someone else to do it, given that you'd have their organs off of them if the situation were reversed?

[TroublesomeEx]

mackerella I don't know really. I'm not too sure why the difference with eyes. I suppose it's for the same reason that I think I'd rather have cataracts than an operation to remove them!

Eyes are just something that make people feel very squeamish.

I know someone who had a corneal transplant for keratoconus too and I know that he became quite distressed whilst waiting for the operation because of the whole would he be able to see what the previous 'owner' had seen.

It might have something to do with eyes being the window to the soul. Eyes are very personal in a way that a kidney or a liver isn't.

[seeker]

"I would accept an organ because I'm human with a normal human survival instinct. If I had the choice of leaving my children without a mother and my husband a widow, then I think it would be pretty selfish of me to tell them they can do without a mother and wife because of my own personal discomforts."

But you don't mind other children being motherless and another husband being a widower?

I've changed my mind over th course of this thread. I started thinking that it shouldn't matter whether you were a donor or not, you should be able to receive an organ. But I think differently now. No organ donor registration, no donation. And I don't like thinking like that- it goes against much of what I believe in.

[seeker]

"I know someone who had a corneal transplant for keratoconus too and I know that he became quite distressed whilst waiting for the operation because of the whole would he be able to see what the previous 'owner' had seen."

No, that would involve a brain, memory and personality transplant. Not yet available.

[lola88]

It makes me sick IMO if you are healthy and able but not willing to register then you should not recieve.

I had a very heated discussion with a friend who was shocked when DS's organ donor card came in when he was months old she said that she would never let anyone 'chop' her childs body up but admitted that she would take an organ for her child. The whole thing makes me very angry

[TroublesomeEx]

No, that would involve a brain, memory and personality transplant. Not yet available.

I think he realised that really! But there was just something about inheriting someone's eyes that bothered him. And probably the fear of the operation at all.

But I agree with what you are saying Seeker, which is why I'm on the register. The idea of being willing to benefit from a sacrifice someone else has made when you are not willing to make that sacrifice yourself doesn't sit comfortably at all.

[CloudsAndTrees]

Of course I mind the fact that other people are going through terrible things.

I just know that I'm not one of those people that would take comfort from the fact that my husbands or child's organs were in someone else after they had been put to rest. It would just upset me. As I know my DH would feel the same way, I wouldn't be prepared to make his grief any harder to deal with.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

Well, I guess you know yourself and your husband well enough to know whether you could take any comfort from having helped someone else.

I don't know how you can square it with yourself that you'd have someone else's heart off them but they can go hang if the situation is reversed.

[seeker]

It's not a sacrifice- you're dead!.