Dilemma

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by ProDeo, Sep 15, 2016.

  1. tango

    tango ... and you shall live ... Staff Member

    That pretty much sums up the concerns I have with it. Given organs need to be pretty fresh to be any use it's easy to see a temptation for a doctor to start allocating parts of me to others before I'm technically dead. There's also the question of whether someone about to be harvested for organs is able to feel pain, given that too much morphine could damage the organs.

    I'm sure there would be lots of soothing words about how such a thing would never happen and the individual wouldn't feel any pain at all, it's just a question of whether such soothing words could be believed. It's not as if anyone is going to contradict them, right?
     
  2. ProDeo

    ProDeo What a day for a day dream

    Certainly.

    Makes one wonder if there are known cases in the media.

    If there were a TOP-3 of reasons why I feel uncomfortable with the new law I will put this on place #3 with the remark I am willing to take the risk. What I haven't found out what's on place #1 and 2. Until then. Scio te isn't always easy.

    In the meantime the Parable of the Good Samaritan is staring into my face.
     
  3. TomH

    TomH Well-Known Member

    O, I have a sister in law who, when replacing her couch, had her husband take the old one to the city dump. Although there was nothing wrong with the old one, it was simply being replaced with a new one.
    Prior to loading it up, she took a knife and slashed the cushions, back, front and arms of the couch.
    Her reasons were quite telling. She couldn't stand the thought of someone retrieving it and taking it home. (Especially those damned Mexicans)
    Virginia and I thought that to be appallingly self centered. It was no longer of use to her, but she was unwilling to allow someone who might really need it to have access to it.

    I'm sure that you, as I, believe we shall receive new bodies at the resurrection. We will no longer need the old. For it will be restored to us.
    As for me? Let the dead bury the dead.
    Rather than have the body pumped full of preservatives, so those who are left may pass by the coffin and comment about how good I look, or better still, allow them to immediately cremate the remains, why not release the body to those in need.
    Organ donation is, to me, simple a lending program that God has allowed us to participate in.
     
  4. Athanasius

    Athanasius Life is not a problem to be solved Staff Member

    In my meantime, I'm considered a high risk donor so even if I said yes, I'd present a bit of a conundrum. I think the issue for a lot of people is trust and fear, more than that they're being selfish and hate Mexicans.
     
  5. IMINXTC

    IMINXTC Time Bandit

    I've had at least two relatives who traded their remains for the price of what would be death expenses, then had closed-casket funerals without bodies.

    The company that makes such purchases uses the remains for research.

    The whole thing creeped me out because some loved ones were not informed and attended mock funerals.
     
  6. tango

    tango ... and you shall live ... Staff Member

    This kind of thing just seems wrong, letting people attend a funeral under false pretenses. I think if you've decided to donate your body to science it's a perfectly fair thing to do but your funeral should be more of a memorial service where it's clear there is no body to bury.
     
  7. tango

    tango ... and you shall live ... Staff Member

    Your analogy of the sofa works up to a point. I agree it's hugely selfish to destroy something that could be useful to someone else just because of having some misguided idea that if you don't want it any more nobody else should have it either. Of course as the owner you have the right to burn it for no reason than you feel like it, it just seems very selfish.

    As far as donating organs goes, the concern for me isn't that someone else might have what was once mine, it's that doctors may be tempted to withhold a potentially risky treatment that might have saved me simply because they could harvest parts from me to save more than one other person (or even one other person deemed more viable than me). Putting that back into your sofa analogy it would be akin not to someone taking your old sofa from the city dump but someone coming into you house and taking your sofa away on the basis they believed they would sit on it more than you do.
     
  8. TomH

    TomH Well-Known Member

    It's rare that a Dr. Would even know that you're an organ donor until it's announced that you're terminal.
    After a certain age, your chances of being a donor decreases dramatically.
    Your options turn from being a donor to simply research. Or for practice at a medical school.
    As a Christian, it's a little troubling to me that there remains a concern that a dead body is of any concern at all.
    It's a lifeless form that was used to carry the person where they needed to go, but then again, so was their car until the engin blew. I never gave much thought of what the junk yard decided to do with the good parts.
     
  9. teddyv

    teddyv The horse is in the barn. Staff Member

    Sort of along Tom's comment, your attending physician is very unlikely to be a surgeon who performs transplant surgery. So I don't think that there is any real conflict of interest. There is always a potential for corruption, but that goes for anything. I just don't see it as any immediate threat within the Western world medical systems.
     
  10. tango

    tango ... and you shall live ... Staff Member

    Sure, it's easy to see how a few checks and balances should, in theory at least, stop at least the most overt corruption. For now at least I maintain my organ donor status although if the government sees fit to dictate to me what will happen unless I say otherwise I will still be tempted to explicitly opt out in protest. The protest is against government overreach, not against organ donation as a concept.
     
  11. Athanasius

    Athanasius Life is not a problem to be solved Staff Member

    The concern seems to be that an attending physician would know that you're an organ donor, and not put as much effort into your treatment as he normally would, knowing that your death could save, let's say, 3 lives.
     
  12. ProDeo

    ProDeo What a day for a day dream

    Well, I had a talk today with my wife about the new law, she suddenly is forced to think about it too and she said, "what about the bereaved? If it happens you go as first I want to bury you as a whole". Do my kids feel uncomfortable as well to bury half of their father? I don't like to make their live even more unpleasant.

    In the meantime here the new law is the center on social media and very soon things got ugly. Folks who don't give permission should not have a right on donor implants as well. Smokers shouldn't get new lungs, alcoholists no donor livers, obese people no donor stomach.
     
  13. teddyv

    teddyv The horse is in the barn. Staff Member

    Well, these are organs, which are generally internal

    It can be tough to sort out, I think more especially in countries with universal healthcare systems. Everyone is paying into the system so everyone should have access to it. But I can understand the sentiment.
     
  14. tango

    tango ... and you shall live ... Staff Member

    In principle I don't have a problem with saying that if you're not willing to donate organs you don't get to receive them either. As long as it's a free choice with consequences clearly spelled out people can make their own decisions.

    Where things like smokers and drinkers are concerned things start to get silly quickly. In the UK there has been ongoing rumblings for years about denying smokers treatment for smoking-related illnesses (it costs money, don't you know?) and denying fat people treatments like knee replacements and all that. Needless to say there wasn't going to be any corresponding reduction in taxes to reflect the services being denied, and the fact that smokers pay huge taxes on their tobacco is usually lost among the self-righteous noise.
     
  15. tango

    tango ... and you shall live ... Staff Member

    One of the major downsides of a healthcare system funded by taxation is that, when it hits its financial limits (and it inevitably will unless it's very heavily restricted) the question of who gets priority comes to the fore and, when the State manages the care, it's easy to see why the State will make decisions based on popularity rather than medical need.

    Hence the notion that smokers suffering from lung cancer get denied treatment because their illness is self-inflicted, the obese don't get new knees because they only wore the old ones out through abuse rather than bad luck, and so on. Which, like so many other political grandstandings, is great for tubthumping and rabble rousing but overlooks all sorts of other situations.

    Should someone who rides a motorcycle be denied treatment if they skid on a patch of gravel and suffer injury? After all, riding that motorbike was a free choice they made so why should they be treated for the injuries resulting from their own lifestyle choices? What about a hiker who suffers a fall in the mountains? Somewhere along the line it has to be accepted that life isn't risk free and a centrally funded system has to focus on medical need rather than finger-pointing and victim-blaming.

    That's where, in many ways, the individual insurance market works more efficiently. If you're twice your ideal weight, smoke like a chimney and drink like a sailor on shore leave, your insurance premiums rise to reflect your increased risk. If your hobbies include downhill mountain biking, hang gliding and bungee jumping you might be as slim as they come and as healthy as it's possible to be but your lifestyle choices create increased risk for major injury.

    Of course the individual insurance market is particularly brutal if someone merely inherited the genes that make them more prone to problems that are expensive to treat and doesn't have the means to fund the increased premiums.

    On a related note, in many ways it would make sense if the sale of organs were legalised. If someone is dead they don't need them any more and if there's a shortage of supply the obvious way to overcome the shortage is to allow them to be sold. It would inevitably create a situation where the wealthy could outbid those of lesser wealth but anyone whose relative had died and objected to such an idea would still be free to sell the organs to a lower bidder based on their perception of need.
     
  16. ProDeo

    ProDeo What a day for a day dream

    Right.

    What folks also tend to forget is that smokers on average live 5 years shorter. That saves society a lot of money. Pension, government allowance for the elder, healthcare.
     
  17. hisleast

    hisleast FISHBEAT!

    For me its a question of precedent. Where does the government source its power to take my body from my loved ones, pillage it of its valuables, and distribute it as they see fit? What will they reach for tomorrow?

    The only source of the power is monopoly on legal violence. I would opt out at every opportunity, if only to [​IMG] the people who would treat me and my family like cattle.
     
  18. tango

    tango ... and you shall live ... Staff Member

    Some years ago one of the UK pension providers offered a deal whereby someone would get an increased pension if they were regular smokers, had been for a specified period of time (I think 10 years) and could prove it. That was based on the notion that they wouldn't live as long and so their monthly payment needed to be a little higher to reflect the increased risk of death.

    At the time the newspaper cartoonists showed things like a father giving his small child a cigarette with the words "Best start thinking about your pension, son".
     
  19. Athanasius

    Athanasius Life is not a problem to be solved Staff Member

    Speaking of which, have you been missold PPI?
     
  20. tango

    tango ... and you shall live ... Staff Member

    No, but I have had numerous cold-callers trying to get me to disclose financial information on assorted pretenses, including that one. When I asked one lady caller why she thought I was interested in disclosing personal financial information to an unidentified caller who wouldn't even share their caller ID with me, she said that maybe she could help me with a claim and repeated her question about what loans I had. So I repeated my question about why she thought I wanted to share information with her, at which time she conceded the point and hung up.

    I grew to hold a special level of disdain for cold callers and their PPI shenanigans.
     

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