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

By all in or all out do you mean you donate all your organs and can't specify which ones you want to donate?

I'd like an answer to this question too, given my present opt out status is entirely down to the lack of an unambiguous ability to rule out certain organs and be guaranteed my wish will be respected. That's my wish, not my grieving family's should worst come to worst. I am happy for my family to decide not to donate organs I am prepared to myself, but not the other way round.

If you want fewer people to opt out your time would be better spent lobbying government to provide a firm opt out for specific organs than berating random strangers online.

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. how dare you presume to speak for those who have actually been through this! how dare you belittle their feelings and minimise them just to further your own agenda!

given my present opt out status is entirely down to the lack of an unambiguous ability to rule out certain organs and be guaranteed my wish will be respected

You do get to tick which organs you consent to donate and can choose to not donate others.

You do get to tick which organs you consent to donate and can choose to not donate others

We've already been through this.

There is no way to categorically, with legal force that cannot be over ridden by family, rule out reproductive organs. Just some weasel words about it not being the governments 'intention' for them to be included as routine 'at this time'.

See also limbs and faces, though I'm not personally fussed about them.

WeeSleekitTimerousMoosey - so on the incredibly small offchance that your reproductive organs could be used in a way that currently isn't even possible, you have chosen to ensure that the rest of your organs definitely can't be used to save lives?

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

That's BS and incredibly offensive. You know nothing of how my Friend or those of anyone else here or elsewhere who found it traumatic. You have no right to dismiss their feelings.My Friend isn't an idiot, she lost her Brother before her husband and she knows that donating his organs was a traumatic experience for her. Of course his death was incredibly traumatic but he sadly wasn't the first close loved one she lost(her brother died before her husband) and she knows that the donation only added to her trauma. Three years later it still haunts her and the thought of strangers she'll never meet possible,g walking around because of him is of no comfort to her whatsoever. Sometimes the opposite Her experience is possibly not the norm but it's as valid as any.

so on the incredibly small offchance that your reproductive organs could be used in a way that currently isn't even possible, you have chosen to ensure that the rest of your organs definitely can't be used to save lives?

There have already been womb transplants so they are possible. Once something happens once it only becomes more common place until it is normalised. I will not be part of that. I was opted in until they happened. I then asked to be specifically opted out and neither the organ registry nor my MSP saw fit to even bother replying to me so take it up with them.

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

This is a very patronising comment, certainly, though I believe there's some truth in what the poster was saying. People who have just been bereaved are very vulnerable and yes it would add to the trauma they're going through.

This isn't about organ donation, but I remember how my MIL was after my FIL had died in a car accident. She absolutely refused to accept that her DH had caused the accident by pulling out into the road without seeing that a car was coming. She wouldn't believe that he could possibly have made a mistake, despite all of us telling her that every driver made mistakes sometimes. So she was furious with the police for not prosecuting the other driver when it really had been a tragic accident.

I know this is a totally different issue; my point is that grief isn't rational and so giving rational arguments won't work here. I don't personally see how it can be rational to not want organs donated after death. These days, most people are cremated anyway, so the body won't be intact in any case.

I can well see why some people don't find any comfort in knowing who has benefited from their loved ones organs. They don't know the people and it doesn't change the fact that their loved one is dead.

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.

Wow, yet more breathtaking ignorance.

I totally understand, Difficult.

I think unless you plan on refusing organ donation should you ever require it, then you're a selfish asshole to opt out of being an organ donor

See also limbs and faces, though I'm not personally fussed about them.

I'm totally against donating limbs and faces and although this hasn't happened in the U.K. yet, it has happened abroad so no doubt it will happen here.

There's no way I'll tick that I'll donate everything and risk donating limbs etc.

I don't really understand why anyone would go down the route of transplanting limbs when the advances in artificial ones have been phenomenal of recent years. I'd sooner see all research money go that way.

Why is donating a hand any different to donating a pancreas?

Why is donating a hand any different to donating a pancreas?

It's a recognisable part of me and it's not life saving.

It would certainly be different if you were having an open casket!

By all in or all out do you mean you donate all your organs and can't specify which ones you want to donate?

As we become more civilised and as medical advancements allows more people to have more transplants, I think we will move to donating all viable organs. Its almost inevitable.

But I dont think it will happen for a few generations and it will be a gradual process. Anyone remember the scare stories from the fifties that donated organs would come with the donors soul and your personality would be permanently altered etc.

I'm already on the organ register and the stem cell register. They can have whatever parts of me they want when I'm dead, and they can have my stem cells whenever they like. Hopefully one day I'll save a life.

eminencegrise I'm so sorry that you also have to miss your daughter. It totally fucking sucks

Thank you, Difficult. Sometimes I feel like I made her up in my head .

As we become more civilised and as medical advancements allows more people to have more transplants, I think we will move to donating all viable organs. Its almost inevitable.

In that case I'd be opting out (not that it's likely to happen in my lifetime).

for you Eminence and Difficult. I'm so sorry for your terrible losses.

Why is donating a hand any different to donating a pancreas? actually I think that receiving a hand is different to receiving a pancreas. Because a hand, face etc is an external part of someone else.

It’s not remotely comparable to an internal organ which just works alongside your other organs in the same way your existing one does. you don’t think about it, but a hand is there. It’s visible and is someone else’s.

In fact I would feel weird about shaking the hand of someone which was in fact not their hand.

Our external self is very much a part of who we are.

I have various bits of technology/kit in my chest which keep my heart beating for now, or at least improve its functionality and prevent it from stopping. I don’t give those things a second thought because they’re just there. I don’t feel them, (well I feel my ICD in that there’s a small outline of it, and I feel it if it paces,) but as a rule it and the other stuff (mitraclip as I was ineligible for a full valve replacement) is just there.

Similarly if I receive a heart I will know it’s there, but as time goes on it will just become a part of me.

But a hand? A face? You look in the mirror at yourself and it’s someone else’s face, or you go to put rings/nail varnish on and it’s someone else’s hand. Sorry but no.

As we become more civilised and as medical advancements allows more people to have more transplants, I think we will move to donating all viable organs. Its almost inevitable. Actually with medical advancements I think it’s inevitable that we will in fact move away from organ donation as a preferred option as they make more advances in both medical treatment to improve current conditions as well as development of artificial organs.

But a hand? A face? You look in the mirror at yourself and it’s someone else’s face, or you go to put rings/nail varnish on and it’s someone else’s hand. Sorry but no.

alternative I wonder if people who have lost a limb to cancer or suffered a horrendous facial disfigurement would feel the same.

Corneal transplants aren’t life saving but they are life changing, as could this sort of transplant.

I’m absolutely pro anyone deciding to donate (or not) any part of their body after death but it’s interesting the different reaction to different body parts.

I'm a blood donor and potential organ donor. If you would take an organ should you be ill to save your life then you should be a donor.