To not like the organ donation pressure?

[AtSea1979]

Don't get me wrong I fully support an opt out rather than in policy.
However DD (7 yo) has come home with a form and is asking lots of questions and it all seems a bit much. She has asked me what would I do if she died and whether I'd let them remove her organs etc and whether I'd do the same if it was me. The head cheerfully informed me they have an important letter we all should sign.
I find it all a bit bully tactics, surely it's a personal choice and nothing to do with anyone else.

I am not on the register but I have told DH I want to donate - they can have everything except my eyes and skin. The reason I am not on the register is because it was all or nothing, I couldn't specify what I want to donate.

Do people look at donating blood in the same way, i.e. if you don't donate you shouldn't accept a donation?

Do people look at donating blood in the same way, i.e. if you don't donate you shouldn't accept a donation?

Giving blood is very different IMO. My DH is petrified of needles. He'd pass out if he had to give blood. It's not something I think he should HAVE to go through when I feel like I can do it enough for both of us. I give blood every time I can (ideally every 4 months), it's not something one person can only do once. It's not as impetative that EVERY person do it. There should be enough of the rest of us doing it regularly to make up for those that don't/can't.

(I whole heartedly disagree with the 'if you're not on the list, you're not getting an organ' viewpoint.)

My view is that 'opt out' is sinister. Medical law in this country is largely driven by case law rather than statute law, at the moment. If donation became obligation then ownership of the body would have to transfer to the state upon death or near death. I, as a person, may choose do donate because it is my body, and I do choose to, but I shudder to live in a world where organs are harvested like a crop as a matter of law. Wouldn't it be inevitable that pretty soon 'life' support after brain death could have bodies stacking up on a commercial basis to pay for it, delaying funerals?

You know, the more I read from people stating that people who wouldn't donate shouldn't be able to receive, and that parents should be comforted by the gift their child's death would bring, and that we should preach to children that it's ok to be sad about death and embrace the gift it might bring through organ donation, the more I am convinced that actually, the radically pro donation don't actually have any empathy at all.

So, parents who feel they couldn't donate their child's organs are selfish. You should know how you would feel before you have actually experienced the loss of a child. It's far better to allow people to die than to allow them a precious organ which might actually have benefited someone else who would be prepared to donate their's in the event of their death, never mind that having received a transplant they would no longer be eligible to be a donor anyway so it's kind of irrelevant.

You do know that by putting your name on a form that doesn't make you better than someone who doesn't? It's all about intention not about actually doing. Perhaps you'd like to extend the law to make live donation compulsory? Everyone has two kidneys after all and only need one. Perhaps we should all donate one of ours to someone in need? A portion of our liver perhaps? All be forced to give blood?

Not so easy to face the reality when you're thinking about having to go down and actually make that commitment is it? In the same way it's not so easy to face the reality when it's your child you're having to say goodbye to.

The grieving don't owe anyone anything.

when a bereaved parent appears in the media people criticise them for not crying enough, for appearing to calm, for not looking sad enough, not wearing enough makeup. And people defend them by saying that no-one has the right to decide what grief should do to another person because grief affects everyone in different ways. And yet if a bereaved parent wouldn't give their child's organs for donation we should judge them because in their grief they felt unable to make that ultimate sacrifice? How is that different then? .

I'm the same as your DH Gwenci, even thinking about it makes me shake which was what made me wonder. I don't know how I'd cope if I had to have a blood transfusion if I wasn't unconscious at the time!

If I end up an organ donor, (as unlikely as that is), I'm ok with the idea of anyone having my organs.

If I'm really honest with myself, would I rather they went to a 'deserving' cause; someone who'd be prepared to do the same for me; or someone afflicted through no fault of their own rather than an alcoholic or drug addict who destroyed their own organs through their own actions? Yes, probably. But that's why it's right that I have no say in it, and I'm glad I don't.

And I certainly would never want someone not to receive my organs because they themselves weren't prepared to do it. You can't be altruistic with those kind of macabre conditions attached.

And we can excuse someone from giving blood because they might be afraid of needles, yet a parent who has just been told their child is going to die doesn't have the right to make that decision while going through the worst pain imaginable?

I have been on MN for years. But some of the attitudes directed at bereaved parents when it comes to organ donation are despicable.

I dont think people should have a choice, it should be automatic organ donation.

I in the "opt out" rather than "opt in" camp.
Once I'm dead, my body is just a body. A slab of meat in a bag that will be burned and scattered to the wind. I no longer need my organs, but there could be numerous people out there who do need them. I'm on the register, and they can take whatever they want. I was a bit squeamish about corneas and skin at first, but again, I don't need them anymore, so my body will be a free for all!!

Don't worry PinkSparkly, even if you're too scared to give blood, you are welcome to as much of mine as you might need! (Hoping you never do, obviously!)

Expat and wannabe great posts. Totally agree.
I'm v shocked at done of the comments on here. Empathy obviously doesn't run both ways.

And we can excuse someone from giving blood because they might be afraid of needles, yet a parent who has just been told their child is going to die doesn't have the right to make that decision while going through the worst pain imaginable?

I would excuse someone from giving blood, yes. But then I also excuse bereaved parents from donating their child's organs if they feel they can't face it.

I agree that anyone judging a bereaved parent for not donating is lacking in basic human empathy.

I think it should be your choice whether to donate or not, but I genuinely believe if you refuse to donate then you shouldn't be allowed to receive a donation. If you can't donate that's different, but if it's pure squeamishness then I think there should be a consequence of making that decision.

'I dont think people should have a choice, it should be automatic organ donation.'

That is a belief that the state should have control of your body and that of your child. Utterly chilling.

It's remarkable isn't it that we deem that everyone should receive an organ as long as they're prepared to give one. No other stipulations attached. Murderers, paedophiles, rapists, the absolute lowlife of society should all be entitled to receive an organ just as long as they would be prepared to donate.

But if you weren't prepared to donate then you shouldn't be allowed to receive.... So your eligibility for receiving an organ would come below the absolute lowlife of society, thus rendering not being prepared to donate an organ in the hypothetical event of your death as a worse crime than being a rapist or a murderer.

Because that is the literal interpretation of the situation....

Let's say the line of thinking goes further, if you cannot donate organs or tissue, it can benefit medicine and science hugely if these products are donated to research. Imagine the lives that can be saved! So selfish, to not donate yourself to research. Opt out. If you don't donate your parts to research, you shouldn't be able to partake of treatments developed from other donations. It should be compulsory! The state decides how you die (because donating means certain practices, like your family being able to sit with you for hours, dying in your loved ones arms, etc can't happen). The state decides when enough is enough and it's time for you to do the right thing and donate yourself to medical research.

This is what becomes of allowing the state to control our bodies.

We already have people actively fighting because the state is dictating to them what they do with their bodies (and that's not even touching on the struggle women had to gain control of their own reproduction as the state used to deny them the right to safe, legal abortion and even the right to not be raped by their own spouses), but somehow the blinders go on when it comes to this issue.

"I dont think people should have a choice, it should be automatic organ donation."

No, a thousand times no.

Nobody, no matter how ill they are, has a right to anyone else's body parts. It must only EVER be a gift.

Exactly expat. in fact funerals should be a thing of the past because once you die you become the property of the state, who will decide what research will be carried out on your body. And if you don't agree not only will you not be entitled to benefit from research but neither will your children.

And let's go into schools and tell them how when someone close to them dies it's ok to feel sad, but they must take comfort from the vast amounts of research which will be done after that person's death, and all the lives that might be saved.

last comment removed because I called someone a wanker, fair enough, shouldn't have said it. But I resent being called selfish, uneducated etc for having hepatitis, Incase that isn't clear now my comment is removed.
Again, Sorry PP for calling you a wanker (Although, To be fair its quite emotive to be called names for having something I never chose to have and hope one day there will be a cure for)

What about face and limb transplants? As far as I'm concerned they are non essentional but do people feel the same way about those?

Totally agree expat. Organ donation completely changes the families last moments with their loved one.
I don't think people can have any concept of what is involved and therefore should perhaps be a little less adamant of their own intentions and judgemental towards others.
I would like to think I could be brave enough to allow a family members organs to be donated but I can't say, hand on heart, that I would. I think its something you can't know until you are the one in that situation.

Brilliant posts by Wannabe and Expat. I have no idea how I would feel if dd died and I hope I never find out. People are ignoring the fact that the organs suitable for donation come from people who are relatively young and have usually died in shocking, sudden situations. The lack of empathy towards relatives going through all that is staggering. Are people really fine with relatives being forced to go through what pps have described above because the state says that the person didn't opt out therefore the state has a right to use the organs no matter what? Really? You may not care what happens to your body when you die but surely you care about your relatives' suffering in those circumstances? (Actually I think most people do care what happens to dead bodies more than they think they do - remember the revulsion when the body of that lady from Yoxall was stolen from her grave by animal rights activists?)

Wannabe love that plan you have and if opt out is brought in I will definitely use it. (Am on the register currently btw.)

And OP I'd be livid if the school sent home a letter like that. It's for me to make the decision not my daughter and I wouldn't appreciate anyone using pester power for something like this (as an aside a couple of kids in dd's class suffer from acute anxiety, god knows how this would affect them and deliberately leaving them out of such discussions would equally upset them).

We already have people actively fighting because the state is dictating to them what they do with their bodies (and that's not even touching on the struggle women had to gain control of their own reproduction as the state used to deny them the right to safe, legal abortion and even the right to not be raped by their own spouses)

I find it actually quite offensive that you would use emotive topics, and such hard won rights as abortion and criminalisation of marital rape, in order to try and bolster your argument for organ donation as a tool of oppressive government.
Really fucking distasteful, dude. Have some respect.

But I resent being called selfish, uneducated etc for having hepatitis, Incase that isn't clear now my comment is removed. Again, Sorry PP for calling you a wanker (Although, To be fair its quite emotive to be called names for having something I never chose to have

It would be, if you had been called anything for that reason. Instead it was made very clear that those posters meant people with a purely ideological objection to donation, NOT a medical reason.

I replied to a comment addressed to me, not a generalization one actually.