Opting out of organ donation

[ringme]

So the law has changed and this spring the NHS will consider you to be an organ donor automatically if you don’t opt out. I haven’t had a chance to really consider this all yet, WIBU to opt out at this stage until I have time to think about it or is that a selfish move given that 408 people died last year waiting for a donor?

What will you be doing?

www.organdonation.nhs.uk/helping-you-to-decide/about-organ-donation/faq/what-is-the-opt-out-system

Yeah but I’m the one that doesn’t show humanity, despite wanting to help others when I don’t my organs... ok then so wanting people to die because of that which they hypothetically wouldn’t be prepared to give is showing humanity is it?

Given your organs will probably wrot in the ground anyway because it’s unlikely you’ll ever be in a position to donate, that argument holds no water.

You are far more likely to be a recipient than a donor, but keep going on about something which will likely never happen to most of us just to show what a caring person you are.

ChangeInTime Thankfully I've never been in your friend's situation but I think I would feel the same. I don't think I'd want to know what had happened to the organs as to me it wouldn't be a comfort, it would be rubbing it in that those people were alive while my loved one wasn't.

Maybe that makes selfish, but grief changes people.

Im happy to donate anything in my body but not my head

Head transplants are wrong and I hope they never happen. I think a Russian doctor was planning on attempting one but I didn't hear whether it took place. I have very strong reservations about face and limb transplants as well, it's a step too far.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat no I meant IN my head so my eyes! But yes definitely not donating my head either 🥴

Honestly the chance of donating your organs anyway is pretty low, not everyone dies in hospital. If you don't then its all useless anyway 🙈

It seriously was discussed a while back by some dodgy doctor so I presumed you were planning for the future in case it did happen! 🤣

Please please consider donation. I'm waiting for a new heart and have a toddler. All I want to do is see him grow up. If I was to get the offer of a heart, it wouldnt just change my life, but my childs life too. He wont have to be the little boy whose mummy died, whose mummy isnt there to see him in the school play or give him cuddles when he's sad or advice as he grows. I can only beg people not to bury that chance to save someone with their loved one.

because that is based on moral judgement and nothing more
Its no more a moral judgement than saying paying your taxes is a moral judgement.
Pass a law and it becomes a legal judgement. Lets hope the people who actually pass laws have the sense and humanity to help the selfless people who are willing to support society rather than the selfish people who are willing to take but not reciprocate.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat I’d imagine a head transplant couldn’t possibly happen even if it were medically possible because then you wouldn’t be you any more - you’d wake up with someone else’s brain and hence someone else’s memories and life experiences. .

Bouncingbelle, stories like yours do more to convince me to donate than all the ones saying what others should and shouldn't do.

I truly hope you get your heart and your little one gets to keep his mummy

If you opt out you should also be opting out of ever receiving one also...bet there wouldn't be so many opt outs then

Works both ways, don't take what you wouldn't give. Beyond selfish to do that.

AlternativePerspective that's what I thought, however I do remember a doctor saying he was going to do it and he'd actually got a volunteer, a paralysed man. I sincerely hope it never happens as that to me is Frankenstein medicine.

@Bouncingbelle I so hope you get a new heart 🤞🏻My mum is on the list for a liver transplant and we hope everyday that she will get a call that one has been found.
I’m very pro-opting in (as are the rest of my family) due to it being so close to home and also after reading about people like @bouncingbelle who are also in need of an organ.
Once I’m dead I’ll have no use for any of my internal organs so if they were suitable to save or extend the life of another person I am all for it.

Just wanted to address this: would you have similar reservations about whose organs you received? I.e. how about if your donor was a murderer? A pedophile?
During my mums assessment to go on the liver transplant list we were told that anyone who has been in prison is not a viable organ donor due to the risk of highly infectious diseases that could be caught through ‘risky activities’ while inside. I think that put my mums mind at ease as she was worried about the possibility of receiving a liver from a convicted paedophile or murderer.

And you might feel the same if you had seen as many people as I have die from organ failure.

No, only children from cancer. Many, many children. My child died from cancer. Very few of the friends she had in the unit are still alive.

I don't feel it's every right to judge a person's personal decision about their own body. Transplants are not magic bullets. But aside from this, it's alarming to wonder what else one's medics are judging them about. I know they're humans, too, the man I love is a doctor himself, but wow, he's not at all judgemental about things like this. There could be some very valid reasons why they do not.

Again, I'm happy to do so myself, if there is anything that can be used, but moral judgements about what people do with their bodies are the scope of rather limited thinking, IMO; must less the idea that medical treatment should be based on moral decisions as some have suggested.

I've very lucky I received my 'gift' of an organ just on three years ago. I would be dead today without it leaving my children without their mum. I will be forever grateful to my donors family agreeing.

Family will always have the finally decision. Also, you are more likely to need an organ than donate one as not every organ is viable after someone has passed.

Please ready the facts as some comments are incorrect and scary.

Most rapists and paedophiles don't go to prison as conviction rates are so low. In reply to poster above about prisoners organs be refused. So you can be getting a organ from anyone. Yet alone racists, misogynists, people whose lifestyle you don't agree with et etc ad infinitum.

I'm happy in my decision not to accept an organ for many reasons

1. no bloodless surgery for organ donation is routinely available, the fact that blood recipients aren't allowed to donate or give organs tells me all I need to know about the blood service along with the fact that some men who have risky sexual lives are now donating with no extra screening as they are now classified as women.

2. the squeamish factor of walking around with someone elses body part inside me.

3. Not knowing who donated ie racist, paedophile, rapist, murderer etc

4. I'm sorry but the country is really going wrong, as is the world and more and more people are I'm alright jack, fuck you. People don't even go to help if someone collapses on public or screams for help or is being attacked in public. (And yes I have offered help in various situations but so many carry on walking or turn away and go in the opposite direction.) I really do not see kindness, politeness, simple human decency etc, that much, anymore. Most people are bloody horrible.

5. Bodily autonomy should be maintained no matter what and this could be the first step in a slippery slope and I do not trust this government.

6. I would not trust the doctors not to give up with treating me adequately in order to gain needed organs. And yes this has been seen in the USA with lower income demographics and African Americans.

I have other reasons too which people will say fit into religious, faith categories.

AlternativePerspective It’s not a head transplant in the way you are thinking. The paralysed man was having his own head put onto another persons body once dead. So he would be himself but with possibly a working body. It didn’t end up happening though.

Cheesespreading I suppose it could also be called a body transplant. It's just so wrong and I'm glad it didn't happen and hope it never does.

I was fortunate to be able to follow the journey of an incredible man who had a lung transplant and it still blows my mind that transplants can be achieved. I’ve been a donor for so long that I never think about it, my family are all aware of it. When my daughter was born it was really hard to think about, not just the remove of organs should anything happen to her but the fact that it would probably be quite quick and I understand how distressing that could be. All the same, she’s been a registered donor since she was a baby.

Like lots of people though, I do have a couple of caveats. Nothing that would impact any life-saving donations though.

I opted in when I was 18. They can have everything except my eyes. I know I don’t need them once I’m six feet under but I just feel creeped out about being buried minus my eyes. Organs are one thing, eyes though...

@Urkiddingright I don't know if this makes a difference to you but it's just corneas that are taken for transplant, not the whole eye.

I think being 'traumatised' by organ donation is really just confusing it with the realisation that a loved one is now dead and will never be coming back.

Hopefully as an opt out system becomes normalised, donating your body will become something to be celebrated. Then we can move to a system where you are either all in or all out of it. Just like we should be doing with vaccinations.

Why anyone would rather burn organs or feed them to the worms than save lives is beyond me.

Then we can move to a system where you are either all in or all out of it.

By all in or all out do you mean you donate all your organs and can't specify which ones you want to donate? If that's the case I'd be a definite opt out.

I think being 'traumatised' by organ donation is really just confusing it with the realisation that a loved one is now dead and will never be coming back

You're wrong. So wrong.

I was there for my daughters last breath, I wasnt there for my sons.

She was taken off her life support and died in my arms. When my son died, I know a lovely doctor was holding his hand, but it wasn't me.

Organ donation is traumatic, the process is long and theres a lot to come to terms with, as well as the grief.

I'm not confused, I decided to donate my sons organs, and was unable to donate my daughters, they were very different experiences, and I dont think the traumatic side of it is spoken about enough, we are all just supposed to be saintly and glad that our loved ones are 'living on' in others.

Best thing to help organ donation would be to remove the need for family consent.

My cousin died. She was on the organ donation register. When she was alive she was very very vocal about it.

Her mother (NOK) refused to give consent for the donation to happen.

WRONG