Should donating organs by compulsory?

[Ferdinand]

Reed, would you really want that when you die, some people will cut you up and take you apart for the different organs they need?

[reed]

sure, why not if it can save the life of somebody else. They are going to perform an autopsy anyway.

[fryke]

Ferdinand: Would you, being dead and all that, really still care? I mean: Even *if* you believe in a surviving soul, doesn't that exact thought mean that you no longer need your body-parts? AFAIK, most religions nowadays don't believe in coming back to the same old body for standard-believers (only son of gods etc.). So in my opinion, ther are two simple options:

1.) You don't believe in an afterlife and this life here is the one we lead, after that, you're gone. Then you (gone) don't really need those organs anymore. You can still wrap things up and make a decent body for a funeral service, btw., which is a thing for those who live on.

2.) You do believe in a spiritual afterlife, where the soul or ghost or whatever is freed of those earthly boundaries. Which means you don't really need those organs anymore. You can still wrap things up and make a decent body for a funeral service, btw., which is a thing for those who live on.

bbloke: Sorry that I mention both theistic and atheistic "options" here. I don't mean to push the thread to that discussion. It just seems strange to me that those who believe in spiritual/religious things seem to cling to their dead bodies _more_ than those who think that this bodily existence is all we really have. Plus: I think it shouldn't even matter whether you believe or not - _unless_ you truly believe you still need your dead body after death.

[bobw]

If the doctors and hospital want to split their fee with me, prior to my death, they can have anything.

[chevy]

fryke,

the image that people have about their body after death it very complex. I was religious and I remember very complicated discussions with several members of different communities. Look at how people get rid of the dead bodies... there have been very different traditions in differents parts of the world, but most parts have a least one tradition. They usually do not just abandon the corpse where it dies. Some people burn it, some burry it, some place it on top of trees to offer it to birds, some eat it... sometimes they have different traditions for their friends and for their enemies...

Now we have more information and we learned scientific thinking, so we should be able to take reasonable decisions, but we still behave like very unreasonable beings... and I think it's often good to be unreasonable. Otherwise why would we spend time discussing this subject on a MacOS forum ?

[pds]

My "gift" becomes someone's $315,000 paycheck???

Estimated Liver Transplant Costs
According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), estimated charges for liver transplantation are:

Estimated First-Year Charge: $314,600

Other costs associated with transplantation include:
recovery and in-hospital stay
extensive lab tests
anesthesia
fees for transplant surgeons and operating room personnel
organ recovery
transportation to hospital (including air transport charges if necessary)
lodging, transportation and food for family members while the patient is hospitalized
physical therapy and rehabilitation
patient lodging following discharge (patients who live more than 50 miles away must stay near hospital for 30 days following discharge)
anti-rejection drugs and other medications (these costs can easily exceed $10,000 in the first year, and some of these medications are required for the rest of a transplant recipient's life).

Let me sell it - or target the donation - but don't take it from me.

http://www.cpmc.org/advanced/liver/p...s/finance.html

[pds]

Or - how about if I donate a liver, it goes onto a special list where it can only be used if all the attendant costs are also donated. Oh, and make it so Mickey Mantle or some other rich geezer can't circumvent the order of the list to take the first available liver. (does the resentment show?)

[reed]

Keep the bones for anthropologists (like me) or burn the lot? Difficult question. However, I think spare parts are difficult to find so one should think of others and use what is possible. It all concerns one's values or religion. And then some.
If somebody can save my daughter with a kidney transplant, for example, after a car accident. Why not. I'd do the same.
A friend of mine has given his body to science. Seeing he can't afford a grave site nor a funeral....all will be paid by the medical college he has left is body. His joke is..."they may find some interesting things but won't recuperate much worth saving."
He's from Glasgow.