I’ve withdrawn from organ donation register

[Purpledogcollar]

I give blood and have always been very pro organ donation.

Sadly I have just withdrawn as protest against reproductive organ donation. I can’t support it and am very conflicted as would like to donate other organs.

What are your views and is it a hasty decision (although not sure I would change my mind).

or our deathtimes. Organs have a fairly short shelf life.

So many people struggle with consent and ethics. But hey, as long as you get your chance to have a snark now, who cares what goes wrong in 5 years time?

I withdrew when it became opt out, I have been a blood donor & I'm registered for bone marrow donation because I will be alive & have a say in what I choose to donate. I would never accept a donated organ even though I saw how amazing it can be when my cousin had a liver transplant & then later a kidney.

Tbh, I'd have no problem with my reproductive organs going to a woman who wouldn't otherwise be able to have kids. Not like it's going to be of any use to me if I'm dead.

And another benefit is that it's one less person that might otherwise consider paying a surrogate.

if they change the law in 5 years time, then they would have to add uterine/reproductive tissue to the opt out list, and then people can choose to opt out.

Right now that isn't an issue, and in the interim 5 years, if these people die, they're denying the chance of their organs saving someones life

I will be dead, I won't care. I have instructed my husband to do whatever is of most comfort to the children and himself. They have to live with whatever happens, not me.

The only thing I have asked for is to be buried near a particular person, if possible. I don't expect them to do it if it's financially not sensible or there is another good reason though. While I say buried, I've also said that if everyone feels better about cremation, they should do that.

Maybe when they are all older I'll feel differently but, for now, it's all about what the children need.

I agree with this.

Although I’ve opted out for myself, if I was asked to agree to one of my family members making an organ donation and they hadn’t opted out, I’d agree to donate whatever they had said. No question. Because it’s really their choice, not mine.

I had also opted in to organ donation since I was a teenager, however, the day they made it opt out, I opted myself, husband and children all out. I was disgusted when they changed it. The state do not own our bodies and this was a step too far for me

Cutting off someone else's nose, to spite the state. Nice.

@Over40Overdating
Brava! Couldn’t agree more.

You would never accept a donated organ? Can I ask why? You would honestly rather die?

I've opted out too, quite a while ago. I suspected they'd be after female reproductive organs at some point and I strongly object to this. I wouldn't trust them to abide by organ preferences either. They don't respect women or any of our other choices.

would you like some tinfoil to go with your paranoia?

I can understand the fear and the reluctance. A lot of policies and laws around trans issues have been very sneakingly put into place. There is a lot of power and money and deception involved with it.

From my own medical issues I also have gotten a serious distrust of the medical industry. And I say industry because we are no longer sick people, we are profit margins.

On the other hand it affects a lot of other people. But how donations work also does not quite sit well with me.

I am from another country so not sure if this works in the UK but I have removed myself from the general donations lists but left specific instructions in my documents for when I die for organs i might want to donate under certain circumstances.

I've been an organ donor for as long as I can remember and I've given blood regularly too. This thread has given me pause for thought.

I don't want my reproductive organs being used even for experimental purposes. I'd never considered that they would be. Aside from my endometriosis, ectopic pregnancy and multiple miscarriages I'd hope my age would make them unusable but I don't like the idea of them being used to further develop this as an option for those who can't have kids. There are so many orphans who need homes why do this? I also wonder how my children would feel if they were used and a baby was born? Would they feel they had a sibling in some sort of way that they'd never know?

I don't want to be any part of this, giving my organs to save a life is one thing but I don't want them being used to allow people to have children. I don't agree with the principle, the funding could be used to do so much for other causes.

I’m a little uncomfortable about reproductive organs being donated but I’m not opting out over it when my organs could save someone’s life.

Are you inside my brain? You have written exactly what I think but so much more powerfully than I could have. I honestly think a lot of the militant posters on here think this is a game. It’s all about the sisterhood, “their side/our side” and who can make the most disgustingly hateful comments without getting banned. No doubt OP was SO proud of herself for coming up with this absurd stance. She must be shocked to get so many replies from people who actually place the real well-being of real people over the made-up hypothetical fiction she dreamt up for the purpose of this thread.

I have withdrawn myself too I can't donate blood so sure my organs and useless too. I have the letter pinned on my board easy assessable to my family if they need to show that I've withdrawn myself.

I'm glad the OP started this. I'm actually learning a lot through comments. You may not like it or are unhappy about the awareness it has raised and may prompt people to research into opting out or staying in but I'm happy I have the chance to look into it.

I completely understand and agree with the reasons why too.

I believe in informed consent and bodily autonomy. I also do not believe in the preservation of life at all costs.

The benefits of transplant surgery are widely touted but a significant proportion do not go as hoped With a heart transplant 10-20% of recipients die in the first 12 months and that statistic hasn't changed much in the last 20 years. That is a high mortality rate so your hypothetical person on a bypass may well gain no benefit from the procedure.

I've seen first hand two people who suffered from the effects of kidney transplant. One friend had two failed transplants (and subsequently died) and the other said he wished he had never agreed to it. He had a far worse quality of life than he had on home dialysis and he died after yet more complications and infections having spent most of his post transplant time in hospital.

And yet scarily @CrappyBarbara the voting is nearly half and half. Totally mad.

Yeah, I’d rather be snarky and know if I die soon, I will definitely save lives with my organs than letting people die because I was worried about what the world might be like 5yrs from now.

It all comes down to consent.

I can consent to all or some of my organs being donated at any time but after my death the surgeons need consent to do the surgery to harvest said organs from my body.

I am legally dead (though my body will be being kept going artificially to give the organs the best chance if a transplant is consented to) so I can't consent to that and they have to ask my NoK.

The problem arises if your NoK has different wishes to you or does not know what your wishes are, because their decision overrides any wishes you may have held previously as it's their signature that is needed on the consent paperwork.

Equally your NoK may have more recent knowledge of your wishes changing and so they have the right to override your wishes - eg if you'd always said "take anything" and have always been registered as such but then in the last few years you'd become squeamish at the idea of someone taking your corneas and told your NoK this, when it comes time to consent to donate they can say "Actually you can take anything *except" the corneas as I know she changed her mind about them recently"

If you're registered then you can set out your wishes to make them explicitly clear but that is essentially the guideline the medical team can give your NoK when they make the decision (IE "She has it recorded that she wanted to donate XYZ, do you have any objection?") as opposed to it being legally binding.

Some dislike it but I think that it is the best system as it allows for you to set out your wishes but the NoK makes the ultimate decision as they may have more recent information ... For example if the OP had posted this thread saying she was about to take herself off the register but then got run over by a bus on the way home before she did so then if the law was "we go with registration only" then doctors could take whatever the wanted, even if the OPs NoK knew she intended to remove herself from the register, as they would have no say in the matter.

Maybe there’s a middle ground, which is officially opting out of organ donation but naming a Power of Attorney who can decide and advocate on your behalf should the situation arise.

I don't understand all the anger. OP doesn't think transplanting reproductive organs is ethical. These organs are likely to grow a foetus, which at some stage has rights, and growing a foetus in a transplanted womb is experimenting on the foetus. OP thinks this is unethical, and withdraws from the register in protest. The procedure isn't widely available now but is predicted to be more available in the next few years. OP doesn't think it should be and has withdrawn from the entire process. I suppose people are right that OP could just subscribe to what they agree with and not boycott the whole thing, but people often do boycott organisations on one thing rather than everything. Maybe I've misunderstood something.

By this logic your consent or otherwise is irrelevant, so stay on the list and potentially save someone’s life if you get hit by a bus tomorrow.