Sylvine said:
Same to You. Read the OP, not just the thread title. Even before the clarification edit, the first line says:
"I thourght mabye unless said otherwise, you should mabye have your organs donated?". Badly worded, but still clearly an opt-out system.
That's fair enough, and I apologize for not picking up on that. I'm afraid I committed the forum sin of expecting a thread title to be consistent with the first post, so the opt-in part of it slipped my mind after a few pages. For the record most of my previous comments deal with mandatory donation, though I still have reservations about opt-out which I'll try to address.
Sylvine said:
For someone who hates to sound like a conspiracy theorist, You sure sound like one. Consider this: Ignoring the opt-out-forms of the deceased would be only insubstantially easier than forging donor cards. Anyone could forge the card itself, and if the "evil government" can make a record disappear, they can make it appear just as easily.
It's not so much the evil government I care about, it's the corporations who would inevitably take over this organ business. Even if not because of greed, the Democrats would privatize it to avoid being accused of "socialism", and the Republicans would do it because... well, because they're Republicans and support privatization (not to mention they tend to axe non-profit healthcare whenever they can, bad for business).
Think about this for a minute. Corporations are out for a profit, and with the US healthcare system the way it is the organs are going to go to the rich who can afford the highest level of insurance. Personally I trust my fellow man more than I would a corporation, and I don't trust either with my insides.
Sylvine said:
The hard truth is: You don't have control as soon as You are (brain)dead. You speak of Jehova's Witnesses - yes, I had the pleasure, my Mom used to be one. I'd like You to consider this, instead: If I go out, murder a Jehova's Witness, harvest his organs and blood and use them for transplants (hypothetical, crazy situations) - do they go to hell? If yes, they're fucked anyways, because there's always the possibility of someone desecrating the body. If no, it doesn't matter (to them) if they opt out and someone criminally decides to ignore that.
If there's an option not to donate, and You use it, and someone ignores it - that's a crime. But it's a different pair of shoes.
I'd say we both agree here, so this is fairly moot. I'm not going to argue for a religion I don't believe in, and this only really becomes an issue if donation is mandatory.
Sylvine said:
Being respectful of people's final wishes is not a law of nature, it's a convention. If my final wish was for some bastard to be murdered, no one would legally endorse it. One could argue that not donating a perfectly good organ which someone desperately needs is aequivalent to murder. It certainly can fall under failure to render assistance, which IS a crime in many a state. Now, when the person's alive, there are other considerations. When the person is dead, though, and in a secular state...?
But isn't that a fairly dangerous view to hold? The argument itself is solid, I'll give you that, but here we have to worry about the natural progression of this. What you're arguing in favour for is essentially a legally enforced charity, the notion that we all have a duty to be charitable towards others and if we're not it makes us criminals. What happens when they start reconsidering the exceptions for living people? I'm not going to sit here and talk about people being fed wholesale into sci-fi organ harvesters, but consider this. I have two kidneys, and only need one to live. Someone out there is dying who could use my spare kidney, so why shouldn't he have it? My health will suffer somewhat, but his will suffer more because of my lack of action. Their death is my criminal negligence!
Sylvine said:
Also, for the record: Yes, actually, I do. I'm sceptical, but I can't imagine living in a state without having at least some measure of trust in the governing apparatus. Or, to put it differently: I trust my fellow human even less to do the right thing. Hell, I was even too lazy to do it myself up 'til now, and I support organ donations ideologically. I'm walking proof that the opt-in system fails on at least one level.
It's your choice to be lazy to opt-in, that's part of the system. The idea is that those who are passionate enough about it can do it, but by default the state keeps away from using your body for such things without permission. If they start telling people that they've essentially given implied permission at birth, that's when I start to get worried.
. It really annoys me that so many people are afraid of a needle :|
