Gordon Brown in favour of presumed consent for organ donation

[WendyWeber]

It's a start

For religious reasons some people are very passionately against this. So if their loved one has neglected to "opt out" the organs may be taken against their wishes.

Well... you wouldn't have thought that they would have done that at Alder Hey, taken organs for medical experimentation without people's consent. But they did.

Those in favour of opt-out, would you be equally happy if the govt/medical profession later chose to interpret that retrieval could include use for medical research or building a collection or any other purpose?

I think people forget how amazing it is that doctors can do this and we are built in such a way that we can save each other like this.I feel so well with my brothers kidney and can't tell you the trauma of being kept alive by a machine.But it is all progress in medicine and you never know what you might need one day.

"really dont think there will be some agressive organ stealing docs on the prowl"

Now imagine that someone's life depends on the doctor retrieving that organ. And since the patient failed to opt out the doc is within their rights.

I would be more surprised if they gave the grieving family a chance to object.

Bodies are badly needed for anatomy lessons, they might also save lives. Where do you draw the line, if it is an opt out system?

Isn't opting out drawing a line?It is saying this is what I won't accept?

Yep, TheDuchess, I'd be perfectly happy with my organs being used for anything (except probably lunchtime football matches for junior doctors - although even that - jeez, I'm DEAD, I don't care what happens to the bits of me I've no use for any more!).

I am more interested in living people than dead - we have reverence for the dead in this country and an almost wilful neglect of the living, it seems.

I find the argument that a doctor m might choose not to save a life because someone else might need the organs utterly bizarre. Let's not forget that a&e doctors generally don't have a list of patients desperately awaiting organs - they are there to save lives, not end them.

I also disagree with this argument that people would not have wanted to donate a liver to George Best. George Best, and other alcoholics who end up screwing up their livers, have to be clean for a period before they are allowed to receive a transplant, and to my knowledge they would be tested for alcohol during that time. So at the time George best received his liver, he was clean. Or should we live in a one strike and you're out society, where your mistakes should go against you for the rest of your life? Yes George best fell off the waggon and died as a result, but there was no knowing that that would happen.

where do we draw the line at who should, and who shouldn't receive certain medical treatment? Surely if someone wants to be helped, they should be given that chance?

well said hunker I wish the west could even slightly get more real about death and bodies etc.If you donate organs you live on in a way which i would find really comforting but I have experienced this so probably not the best person for this discussion

fio, i also thought gordon brown was speaking as a father and not just a pm when i read it yesterday. BUT i do know he has met with people from the CT trust long before his ds was birn and has always appeared to be in huuuge favour for organ donation. at present stats, his ds has only a 50% chance of getting new lungs if he needs them, and IMO that just isnt good enough. i recently watched some of emily's videos from before transplant, and comparing them with when i last saw her in sept, is amazing. the transformation is just breathtaking, she literally glows and sparkles, she can talk freely and easily, without tiring.

and obviously watching peters transformation in the days following his transplant was very emotional.

I think the people doing the organ transplants will not be the same ones doing the possible saving of life of the potential organ donor.

Actually, I know they won't.

So all this "ooh, no, let's not save this man's life, look, he has dirty fingernails and I bet he beats his wife, let's give his earlobes to nice Mrs Johnson, she likes kittens and baking" will not happen.

(I've made myself laugh with that post - sorry)

why do people still belive the crap that docs wont save them if they know they are on the organ donor register? load of twaddle.

you do know they check yur brain function one, twice, and all relatives get a chance to say goodbye as well? organs can only be used from patients who are brain stem dead.

you are more likely to need a transplant than become a donor.

i think he had multi organ failure fio, and it was stated it wasnt related to his drinking at all.

i know fio but just in case other people think that

I do agree that the idea of nefarious organ-stealing doctors is wildly alarmist.

I just have images of doctors prowling the corridors, looking for people who look a bit peaky, in case they have lovely organs that would match their favourite patients.

And it's just so impossible!