Make organ donation compulsory

[pikatore]

Quote by: Osborn F Enready There are a lot of people who VOLUNTARILY give up organs. Why do you wish to rob their noble deeds, and kindness with the force of a gun?

I had something like a fine in mind.

[Gods_Mercenary]

And how do you enforce the fine? With a cop's gun, that's how. If I refuse to pay it then the government will force me too. By the way, many will rather pay the fine than give up their organs, I might as well, I refuse to allow the govt to force me to do it, even if I wanted to in the first place.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Go ahead, ignore my posts....

[Osborn F Enready]

Who Morgan? Pikatore?

[Gods_Mercenary]

O.K., I'll ignore them.

[Epistemologist]

Fine, I'll kindly respond.

Quote by: Morgan_Freeman Much more accurate to say that your brother's life is worth more than money. Or is it? Let's turn this around. You don't have a kidney you can donate to your brother, but you can buy it from someone else. How much would you be willing to pay for it? $1,000,000? $1,000,000,00? If it's even possible to get loans this large for non-business purposes, getting this money would place you in bondage to a money lender for the rest of your life. Would you be willing to do that for your brother? I know I wouldn't. I'd be like, "See ya in the afterlife, Chuck."

It's such a horrible decision for families knowing that they could have chosen between these options yet this option of paying money is basically unthinkable, and that's why the people are urging organ donation. They wouldn't usually make an active decision calculus, though, because like I said, the monetary option is rather unthinkable for many without the funds; thus, they probably wouldn't say "See ya Chuck."

Of course, they can always hold up an organ storage place and go to jail like that guy in Prison Break. Or maybe have a rebellious doctor and a cute daughter coax the husband of a dead lady to donate her heart like in House. Yeah, these kinds of situations are so dramatic that they're often in dramas.

Quote by: Morgan_Freeman It's not "altruistic" if you're forced to do it.

I agree in the context of deontological altruism.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: Osborn F Enready Who Morgan? Pikatore?

Yep.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: Epistemologist It's such a horrible decision for families knowing that they could have chosen between these options yet this option of paying money is basically unthinkable, and that's why the people are urging organ donation. They wouldn't usually make an active decision calculus, though, because like I said, the monetary option is rather unthinkable for many without the funds; thus, they probably wouldn't say "See ya Chuck." Of course, they can always hold up an organ storage place and go to jail like that guy in Prison Break. Or maybe have a rebellious doctor and a cute daughter coax the husband of a dead lady to donate her heart like in House. Yeah, these kinds of situations are so dramatic that they're often in dramas.

Fortunately, the situation I've outlined is highly fictional, and was intended only to illustrate the principles.

If organ sale were legal, there would be plenty of organs to go around. Who, except for a few crazy religious fundamentalists, would pass up the chance to let their family profit off their dead body?

[Praxius]

Quote by: Morgan_Freeman Who, except for a few crazy religious fundamentalists, would pass up the chance to let their family profit off their dead body?

I would.

Think about it this way..... people have problems with prostitutes selling their body while they're alive and well, by their own free will, yet it seems the same people don't have a problem paying for their body parts after they're dead..... why? Because then they get to decide what to do with a part of that person, removing their ability to choose, or ignoring their choices once they can not speak for themselves.

Honestly, I couldn't give a rats ass about the next guy beside me, or saving the life of someone I would never meet. I don't need to be a hero by giving away my body and no, it will not make me feel any better knowing I saved some poor idiot's life who drank too much alcohol and needs a new liver.... or some idiot who smoked all his or her life and now needs my lungs..... or some twit who didn't take care of themselves when they had the chance and now needs new kidneys.

Why should I have my body desicrated and ripped apart to prolong the lives of others who didn't take care of themselves as well as I did, or just should be dead anyways, due to natural selection and illness?

Do you see how many people over in Africa and other developing countries are always begging for you to be a sponsor and save these poor children and people who can't afford to live on their own, or just don't know how to take care of themselves, so they need to get others to take care of them? This is the same situation......

Oh Poor people of the world..... let's save them all because they're suffering and we have it well..... let's make sure there is never a hungry person in the world and all is happy..... let's make sure that everybody who's ill has some dead body lying somewhere for backup body parts.

FOK THAT!

I have compassion for the individual, but humanity can be brought to near extinction and I wouldn't care two shits about it. Maybe that's what we need.....

Illogical? Meh. I don't care..... why? Cuz I don't.

[Mason]

Quote by: pikatore I'm not here to negotiate, I'm here to debate. So this thread isn't for you. And for everyone, some organ tissue literally worth 10 cents of carbon and other basic elements and chemicals is a hell of a lot different than a hefty sum of money. You should know that, and make the important step that realising that it wouldn't be much of a loss to the person who died, AND that person's familiars, if some of his organs (assuming he was healthy) were used to further those who still have life in them or need such organs to survive. It's a good gesture anyway. Or maybe some of you still have a bit of a moral dilemma concerning death.

My g/f is an organ donor and we debate this all the time. I say one day I will change the status so I am an organ donor. Religiously, I am agnostic at best. But I have it in my head that I want to leave this world with all the parts I came into it with. Granted, these parts will rot away or may even be cremated.

A metaphor would be if your getting an abortion, donate the fetus to stem cell research. How will that go over? The baby's dead. Its going to get thrown out anyway. But someone would call it "sick".

[syc-sadist]

but it would be devestating to family members and loved ones who disagree with the process and seeing there loved one mutilated and no longer whole

[pikatore]

Quote by: syc-sadist but it would be devestating to family members and loved ones who disagree with the process and seeing there loved one mutilated and no longer whole

Or not seeing them mutilated. You think that organ extraction involved smacking the corpse with a sledgehammer?

[syc-sadist]

no but it involves taking pieces of them...and letting them contnue to liv ein other people.....it's a difficult concept to accept when part of your loved one is still 'livig' in someone else...

[pikatore]

Quote by: syc-sadist no but it involves taking pieces of them...and letting them contnue to liv ein other people.....it's a difficult concept to accept when part of your loved one is still 'livig' in someone else...

Well, if you are superstitious, then yes.

To argue this on a spiritual level, the body of a loved one is just a shell, so it is quite silly to keep it intact and let it rot, and with it, destroy a few people's chance of survival.

[Gods_Mercenary]

A silliness that we, in america at least, are guarenteed the right to have.

[syc-sadist]

I like the fact that it's choice, if it means something to that person or there loved ones then we should respect there wishes. [i]f you choose to be and organ donor by all means go ahead. Choice is brilliant. you may be dead but you made the choice when you where alive.

[Jachin]

It's not online yet, but Reason magazine has an interesting article in the March 2007 edition about the organ donation business. As it stands now, the organ donor's beneficiaries are the only parties who are not making buckets of money from harvesting organs. Its very eye-opening to see how the system works.

My position is that organ donation should not be mandatory. Rather, a person should be able to sell his own organs, or devise that right to whomever he so chooses upon his death.

[pikatore]

Well, I'll back off from making it compulsory, but I believe that it is a lot better than have organ donation by dissent instead of consent. That is, you are assumed to be cool with donating your organs, unless you say otherwise.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Seems more logical to me, but it would have to be abundantly clear that that ia what's going to happen unless otherwise stated.

[pikatore]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary Seems more logical to me, but it would have to be abundantly clear that that ia what's going to happen unless otherwise stated.

Agreed.