Posted on 06/23/2005 12:10:56 PM PDT by edcoil
By Steve Chapman
Socialist and communist governments have nationalized all sorts of things: oil and gas fields, phone companies, steel mills, coal mines, airlines and farms. Now the American Medical Association, which generally does not favor collective ownership of the means of production, has proposed to go even further. It suggests nationalizing corpses.
The United States has a severe shortage of kidneys, livers, lungs and other human organs needed by patients awaiting transplants. The AMA thinks we might close the gap between supply and demand by confiscating body parts from people who no longer need them.
Today, you have to agree in advance to donate your organs in case of your untimely demise. In a system of "presumed consent," by contrast, you would automatically surrender them, unless you gave specific instructions to the contrary.
"Presumed consent" is a nice euphemism for something that falls well short of real consent. It's bad enough that the government expects to live off the sweat of your brow while you are among the living, or that it insists on collecting estate taxes when you have the misfortune to die. But now it's going to extract a literal pound of flesh before allowing you the peace of the grave?
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpoltics.com ...
read later
Your link doesn't lead to the article.
With this and the SCOTUS ruling destroying property rights. We are all now property of the government. Please line up so we cna tattooo you barcode to your forehead.
Organ donation should be voluntary. I'm am just now going on the waiting list for a new kidney, and I don't think that this confiscatory scheme is a good idea. I would much rather see them try to dispel all of the misconceptions surrounding organ donation.
Tanks! ;-)
Could this be avoided by willing my body to someone I trust? Or better yet, willing it to a special foundation I set which has the sole directive or burying ... or, to avoid being dug up again, cremating, preferably big, blazing, Viking funeral style ... my body?
Yes, and payment should be allowed. It's a basic law of economics that price controls cause shortages, so the current situation shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
I'd have to take myself off the organ donor list, or course, but I'm contrary that way.
FR is REALLY getting me to the point where a Fortress of Solitude is sounder better all the time.
All I got to say is LIKE HE$$!
Yes, and now if the government thinks it can generate more revenue by assigning your spare kidney to someone else, it can use its power of eminent domain to take it from you.
From each according to his means, to each according to his needs.
Presumed consent is medical marxism.
Read the whole article. Steve's point is that instead of the current system of donations only by those who think about doing it, or the system of "organ conscription" that the AMA proposes, people should be allowed to sell their organs, with their heirs (or whomever they designate, like a charity) profiting. He figures that at $1,000 per, kidneys and livers would be a lot more available.
One thing the story doesn't mention is that organ availability for minorities is extremely bad. One reason is fear that your organ would wind up in someone of a different race (possible, but unlikely due to tissue matching; you are more likely a tissue match with people of the same race, which puts members of minority groups at a distinct disadvantage).
Organ banks that receive donations usually sell them to hospitals or to researchers for significant money. So the doctors don't mind the idea of people profiting from organ transplants, as long as they and their allies are the ones making the money. It's the idea of John Q. Patient making a dime off his guts that irritates their sense of medical ethics... "medical ethics" defined in narrow trade union terms.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I did; I was commenting on the AMA's proposal of presumed consent.
One thing the story doesn't mention is that organ availability for minorities is extremely bad. One reason is fear that your organ would wind up in someone of a different race
I've never heard that before, but it may be true to a small extent.
I've seen comments on FR on other transplant threads with several misconceptions re: donations. One is that doctors will pronounce someone brain dead just to get their organs (I've been an RN for 16 years, and have NEVER seen this done).
I concur. There is a surgical oncologist who blogs ("Orac Knows"); he commented on a case where someone remarked to the mother of a brain-dead kid that they were only keeping him plugged in so that could part him out. (well, they used the term "harvest his organs.") The doc thought someone probably did say that, but didn't believe a doc would have, he thought it was a nurse! (I have seen insensitive practitioners of all kinds, and you can't tell by what their field is, so I think someone did say something similar to the family, and it could as easily have been a doc as anybody).
The thing is, in that case the pt was brain-dead, and it's absolutely true that the only reasons for keeping a brain-dead person plugged in are insistence of the family (which in many states can't override a doc's decision to unplug -- this is brain-death, not coma or anything else) and to keep the reusable bits viable.
As far as minorities and organs go, I bet you don't work in an inner city hospital -- the minority fear of organ donation is real, and the very worst thing we could do is make fun of it or dismiss it. It is irrational, but it is strongly believed none the less. A lot of my black friends fear that rich white people would get their parts and that black folks would be last in line, so this is their excuse not to donate. As you know well, race doesn't enter into it at all (except through the proxy of tissue typing); who gets an organ depends on who needs it the most and is the best match, mostly. But the very low rate of minority donors means even more minorities have experience of an acquaintance's relative who languished to death on the list. And that reinforces their mistaken belief that blacks don't get their "fair share" of organs. You gotta put in your share too.
Everybody should be a donor. At that point the organs can't help you or your family any more, but they can make all the difference in the world to someone else. Still, it's a free country and people need to be able to make that highly personal decision freely. I like the idea of offering a few dollars to help them make the right decision a lot more than I like the AMA's arrogating the decision to themselves.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I agree with you that organ donation should be voluntary. What with the SCOTUS decision today, this "presumed consent" doesn't seem so far off. I already feel violated.
On a side note, do you think that the rarity of organs for transplant is caused or at least enhanced by so many foreigners coming here for transplants, etc? I know about the Federal law limiting organ transplants to foreigners to 5% of the total. Somehow I don't think that law is enforced to any greater degree than our immigration laws.
Hope you get yours before I get mine....Susan
I agree; most likely true. However, this is different than "unplugging" someone/declaring them brain dead so as to "part them out" (which, as I remarked, does not happen). If someone is brain dead, they do keep them on life support, in order to preserve the organs, and give them time to set up a transplant (which is a complex procedure).
As for the minority issue, I agree with you; they are only hurting (by proxy) their own race, since they limit the pool of available organs, and a black donor to recipient is more likely a match, than a white to black or vice versa.
Everybody should be a donor. At that point the organs can't help you or your family any more, but they can make all the difference in the world to someone else.
Agreed. The problem is that many people have not been personally affected such as themselves or a relative needing an organ. I've had "organ donor" on my license for at least 15-20 years now, which is way before I even knew I eventually would need an organ. I still strongly believe that the key to getting people to donate organs after death is education; it should NOT be forced on them, and financial incentives are an even better way to increase the supply of organs.
BTW, thanks for the blog link; I have it bookmarked.
Medical ethics discussion ping.
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