Should donating organs by compulsory?

Should organ donation be compulsory?

  • Yes

  • No

  • Undecided

  • Who am I to say what is right here?

Results are only viewable after voting.
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 ?
 
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).
Click to expand...

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

http://www.cpmc.org/advanced/liver/patients/topics/finance.html
 
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?)
 
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.
 
I'm not sure I understand. This is not a question of selling "something" but passing "it" on to somebody who needs "it" in case of sudden death. Selling organs while you are alive is another piece of cake.
Go to the China (or elsewhere) "traffic of organs" file for further details.

You get hit by a Mac Truck. Okay? The kidney is intact...the rest is squash. What do you wish to do? Save a life with an intact kidney (or liver, etc.) or chuck the lot in a coffin?
A true ecologist would say: "Recycle it."
 
As a citizen of the United Snakes of America, where greed-gone-mad is practiced regularly and with the greatest of religious fervor, and money and property are valued far, far more highly than human well-being and welfare, I would consent to donate my offal, free of charge of course, ONLY if the physicians and hospital making use of my sweetbreads, etc, provide their services entirely free of charge to the recipient(s) of my delicacies. I mean, it's only fair, no?
As one of the 50 million Americans sans medical insurance,
I'm a self employed writer and gardener, I, a., can't afford it....it's obscenely expensive, and, b., couldn't get it anyway even if I could since I have a "pre-existing condition", and health insurance carriers, being profit making corporations, are concerned with one thing only... the bottom line, their profits.
The US, of course, doesn't provide medical/health care for its citizens, except for, as one example, its senators and congressmen/women, most of whom are already very well heeled and could easily afford the best medical care/insurance on their own but choose to avail themselves of the best medical care at taxpayer's expense, millions of said taxpayers who are, like me, without it. Really sick and perverse, no?
Which reminds me, I'm looking forward to seeing Michael Moore's latest flick, "Sicko", his jab at the sick(and sickening) state of the US medical industry.... and the millions of folks who suffer because of it.
 
Naturally YOU won't be the one to cash the check, but you probably have heirs.

Insurance is a non-issue. Either way mountains of money are involved. Either you have insurance and it would cover the organ the same way it (in theory) covers the rest of the costs, or you don't, in which case the cost of the organ would be just a drop in the bucket.

I'm not saying I agree with this stance. I think it's a little perverse, but then, the whole medical industry is perverse.
 
reed said:
I'm not sure I understand. This is not a question of selling "something" but passing "it" on to somebody who needs "it" in case of sudden death. Selling organs while you are alive is another piece of cake.
Go to the China (or elsewhere) "traffic of organs" file for further details.

You get hit by a Mac Truck. Okay? The kidney is intact...the rest is squash. What do you wish to do? Save a life with an intact kidney (or liver, etc.) or chuck the lot in a coffin?
Click to expand...
I'm not talking about the financial gain, I'm talking about ownership. The transplant industry makes a fortune on the whole process and as someone said, the "cost" of the organ is the least significant part, even if it sold by a "live" donor.

That industry is incredibly corrupt. A friend of mine was on the liver donor list for years when Mickey Mantle was diagnosed with hepatitus C (a by product of his binge drinking). Mickey got a liver in three months and my friend continued to wait till they found out that his wife could donate half of her own.
A true ecologist would say: "Recycle it."
Click to expand...
If the ecologist owned it - he should. Trash can be recycled because it is thrown away, therefore owned by the trashman. But would the trashman be able to take the landlord's good china and recycle it with the glass? It belongs to the landlord, be he alive or dead.

I think voluntary donorship is the only way to go and the way to encourage it is to make the process of getting a donated organ transparent and less costly.
 
If somebody can benefit from my kidney (on the cheap) no problem. If there are scum doctors and HMO's who make mega bucks on the organ donated, I have my doubts.But what the hec...I saved somebody. Maybe.
"Free" National heathcare is another problem. Another forum? Especially in the USA. In France it is NOT free. But one is protected in a certain manner for sure. Sarkozy (the new President) seems to be heading towards the American system. Less State aid and more private health insurence (Blue Cross/Sheild, etc. kind of organizations...les Mutuals). Not now, but later on when he is well planted in his mandate as president. A political hot potato for the moment.
THE debate is always there and the solutions seem hard to find. I'm all for universal heath coverage. 100%. But NOTHING is free. Somebody has to pay for it. State taxes and other indirect taxes, etc..
An aside, the money used for the Bush/Iraq War (1000$ a second), for example, might have been better used for such problems. Are we all in agreement?
Good health to you all.
 
What a dumb question!

In the case of the originator of this thread I vote for a mandatory brain transplant! Even Bush is smarter.
 
Huh? Are you sure Bush will donate his brain to rhisiart? Obviously, you have your own thoughts about this subject. I guess, from your "answer", that you're against getting an organ replacement that could save your life one day. Gladly I'll take it instead should I need it at the same time.
 
rhisiart said:
Heaven forbid that anyone of us were to meet an timely death. But if the worst was to happen, our organs may allow others with terminal disease to live longer.

I am talking about presumed consent here (doctors will automatically remove your organs in the event of death, unless you carry a card to say you don't want this).

In the UK, this is becoming a big issue as transplant organs are rare. The British opt in system, i.e. carrying a donor card to say you want to donate your organs, doesn't seem to be working.

I understand in some countries they have have an opt out system, i.e. carrying a donor card to say you do not want to donate your organs, which makes far more organs available.

Any thoughts my fellow macaficionados?
Click to expand...

That does sound better. The card could also contain information like whether or not the person is diabetic. It's handy to know this when you can't ask them, and of course, if Diabetics just carry cards, that doesn't mean that everyone who doesn't carry one isn't a diabetic.

Good idea.
 
rhisiart said:
I'd welcome a brain transplant as long as you are not the donor.
Click to expand...

Don't worry, the brain is just the machine, not the ideas that it carries (a Mac can re-use PC hardware without losing its identity isn't it ?).
 
Hm. I personally think that your thoughts and memories etc. _are_ stored in the brain, though, chevy.
 
Same as some software is stored in RAM. But if you stop the power, you just get an empty RAM. I am convinced that if you stop irrigating the brain, all chemical/electrical potentials get corrupted and you just get an empty brain... even the addressing system needs to be rebuild.
 
Speaking of brains... has anyone seen one of the worst serial B films ever made in Hollywood (in the 50s)?

"They Saved Hitlers Brain"

Talk about RAM shutdown. A riot.
 
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