If you would like to watch a depressing, distressing yet thoroughly thought provoking movie on the subject, I would recommend the above.
Thanks for putting my attitude on the subject into better words than I can think of.
They can have anything they want of mine when I’m done with it. Even Soylent Green if they want.
Don’t sign that card!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aclS1pGHp8o
You’re not alone. I’m not an organ donor either for the same reasons. I DO think sometimes, when the time is right, to SELL my organ(s) letting my beneficiares receive the money.
53 years young old and I worked hard most of my life and my body lets me know every day LOL
Here in CA, when they mailed you your new driver’s license, they used to include a stick-on orange dot in the package. If you wanted to be an organ donor, you stuck it on your license. I always stuck the dot on the license, knowing I change my mind and peel it off.
A few years ago, after I took the renewal test and got my new license in the mail (and admittedly, I had checked “yes” to the organ donor question) it was unsettling to see that the dot was now embedded in the plastic on the license. No changing your mind. It bothered me for years.
Last year when I renewed again, I checked ‘no” at the DMV. The clerk seemed surprised. “You don’t want to be an organ donor?” “No.”
So my new license has no orange dot. But here’s what’s creepy: you’re still required to go on a government website and jump through all their hoops to get your name off the official state donor list. So even if you “opt out” at the DMV and get rid of the orange dot notation on your license, as far as the state is concerned, if you ever opted in, you’re a donor. Period.
I printed out a copy of my “take me off the list” donor receipt and put it with my important papers, and also let family members know loud and clear — if I’m incapacitated, I am NOT an organ donor.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s “no record” at the state registry of my ever having taken myself off the list. Just look at the subtle pressure from the clerk at the DMV. The default position of the state is now “Of course, you’re an organ donor. Why wouldn’t you be? Are you selfish?”
The whole thing just creeps me out. Your post said it all very well.
I’m not an organ donor either. When I was in college, I considered it. However, I worked at a hospital. A teen had been in a traumatic vehicle accident and the hospital kept pushing the family to donate the organs. When the family told the doctors that their daughter squeezed their hands slightly when asked to do so, the doctors told them it was not possible. The family was “feeling” what wasn’t there to make themselves feel like she was viable. Long story short... the teen was later transferred to a rehabilitation facility. She would never be like she was before the accident; however, she was able to re-learn how to walk (with a gait), talk, etc... That one case has always stayed in my mind.
The only way I would become an organ donor is if it could be only reserved for a conservative. The very last thing I would want to have my organs go to is a damned Democrat.
I ride motorcycles AND I refused to donate my organs.
But everything has its price especially if I can live with one kidney.
I’m surprised if not more people are refusing to sign these donor cards, instead their should be a Kelly blue book value of used human parts and they should instead be bought.
So if I get killed on the highway then my family can get the monies from my auctioned surviving parts.
Why give it away when times are tough? Think of the funeral cost at the very least!
If you would like to watch a depressing, distressing yet thoroughly thought provoking movie on the subject, I would recommend the above.
Neither am I, but I offer free removal of organs for anyone that tries to make me a donor.
The best bet is to use the system against the system.
1) There are numerous diseases that disqualify organ donation.
2) The way such diseases are determined is usually first a mention in a medical record, and second, a blood test for the *antigens*, the bodies immune response to that disease in particular. Importantly, not the disease itself.
3) So all a person needs is to have an annotation made in their medical file, likely during a brief visit to Mexico, then to have an inoculation of the otherwise harmless, appropriate antigen. The combination of these two things will make your organs “anathema” to transplant.
Of course, if the organ theft arrangement has become incredibly corrupt, they won’t care if the organ is full of worms before selling it to some desperate patient.
You stated exactly how I feel about it. If by chance there is no way for me to be saved, then my family will know whether or not I want to donate or not. They will not let anyone know until the very end.
I would never be listed in a organ donor database. That just opens up all sorts of problems for the person that could possibly be saved. I also feel that the doctors could be thinking - well we have 4 people that could benefit from this persons parts. Lets not try so hard to save them.
You are not alone!
The United States Catholic Bishops’ Conference stated in 1977:
The transplantation of organs from living donors is morally permissible when the anticipated benefit to the recipient is proportionate to the harm done to the donor, provided that the loss of such organ(s) does not deprive the donor of life itself nor of the functional integrity of his body.
Postmortem examinations must not begin until death is morally certain. Vital organs, that is, organs necessary to sustain life, may not be removed until death has taken place. The determination of the time of death must be made in accordance with responsible and commonly accepted scientific criteria. In accordance with current medical practice, to prevent any conflict of interest, the dying patient’s doctor or doctors should ordinarily be distinct from the transplant team.
Powerful medical organizations that advocate organ donation do not always support the morally correct position. Take, for example, the flip-flop stance of the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs of the American Medical Association (E-J Council AMA). In 1988, the Council concluded that it is “ethically acceptable” to use organs from anencephalic [6] neonates only after they have died (AMA “Reports,” 1992, vol. 1, 40-52). In 1994 the same Council reversed its position by stating that it is ethically acceptable to transplant the organs of anencephalic infants even before they die.
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/medical_ethics/me0019.html
I refuse to donate any organ, including my blood, for two reasons: I have psoriatic arthritis and Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome.
While dialysis may help the arthritis, no one knows if CFIDS is contagious or if it can be transferred in any way.
d will
Of course, I owe no one a reason for my choice and refuse to be pressured.
My fiancee woke up feeling not so good one day. He is 34 years old. He went to the ER. he had no open wounds but was down to only having 6 or 7 pints of blood in his body. He was in end-stage complete renal failure. His doctor had totally missed all the symptoms. He is on dialysis three times a week for 3 to 4 hours at a time, and he will be for the rest of his life, unless he gets another kidney. They typed all of his family with no luck, so his only hope is organ donation.
I have a cousin named Liana. She’s in her 20’s. She was diagnosed as being terminal without finding a bone marrow match. By the grace of God they found a match for her and she is good to go for her transplant on May 22.
We donated my father’s eyes, bone and skin when he passed. He had a massive heart attack, it basically exploded in his chest and his organs had been without oxygen for so long that we were unable to donate anything else.
I doubt that any doctor would “steal” organs to make money. You can get more money out of someone with a chronic condition than you can be curing someone of said condition.
My brother, and my mother, and pretty much every member of my family is an organ donor. I am and have a living will set up to specify it, and I’m in the process of getting typed and will be on the national bone marrow donation registry. I think refusing to be an organ donor is pretty much the height of selfishness. If you can look at a 7 yr old child on dialysis until he either gets a kidney or dies or 4 yr old child that needs a heart transplant and still say, “Nope, I’m keeping all my organs”, that’s between you and whatever God you claim to worship.