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The Forum > Article Comments > The real hoax of organ donation > Comments

The real hoax of organ donation : Comments

By Chris Devir, published 19/6/2007

Organs that don’t get transplanted are burnt or buried: they are completely wasted.

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aqvarius, under an "opt-out" system you could opt out if you didn't like the idea of a stranger making use of your organs after you no longer had any use for them. Most people seem to be okay with the idea when they think about it. The problem is that people don't always think about it.

To be fair, though, if a person chooses to "opt out" they should maybe go to the bottom of the waiting list in the event they need a transplant themselves.
Posted by Snout, Thursday, 21 June 2007 1:01:36 PM
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I love all the emotionality and the implied backhanded coercion it brings with it in the form of "you selfish bastard, yes, it's your right but, why exercise your right at the detriment of someone needing your organs to live for a couple of more years."

This is the cornerstone of any "opt out" programme. Emotional coercion. The quality of life for most transplant patients isn't debatable. It's meager. Fraught with pain, fear, infections, heavy reliance on drugs and expensive medical attention and after care. The latter laid at the door of the taxpayer who receives no return on their investment. Very few are capable to return to the work force.

I've been enjoying the comments by those who don't actually take the time to read and digest someones post before launching into expressing their "feelings" about what they have not truly read or at least comprehended. Some of these same people can be found a couple of threads down advocating abortion, and the harvesting of the fetal remains for extending and treating those more alive. It's these moral inconsistencies that led me to my last post which is not opinion but, rather a satirical response to the self-righteous who advocate keeping alive the diseased. Desperate to hang onto the last vestige of life through harvesting organs and if necessary taking another life.

I would suggest those people who have asked that lucky Doctor to terminate their babies life to terminate their dysfunctional and ailing relatives. Oh no, wait. We can shove them off into long term care facilities and the "system" will take care of them. The taxpayer will take care. I wont loose out like I would have if I had to raise a child.

Some peoples values and morality is conditional on what it will cost them in terms of their own getting.

I suggest people read John Harris, The survival Lottery. (Philosophy. Applied ethics).
Posted by aqvarivs, Thursday, 21 June 2007 4:10:38 PM
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All this talk about transplants reminds me of the late Jim Cameron. Jim was in the NSW Parliament as the Liberal member for Northcott and in 1983 he was the only member to speak and vote against the Human Tissue Bill. This Bill was concerned with organ donation and Jim objected to transplants, apparently because of "God's will".

Jim was elected to the upper house of the NSW Parliament for Call to Australia in 1984, but had to resign shortly afterwards because of a massive heart attack. The only solution was a heart transplant... Jim apparently consulted with God and discovered it was "God's will" that he have a transplant.

Jim made a full recovery and decided he wanted his seat back. Marie Bignold, who'd replaced Jim as Call to Australia representative, decided that wasn't "God's will". Undaunted, Cameron offered himself to any party that would have him. Nobody was interested.

Apparently the prospect of imminent death sharpens the mind marvelously. I can't begrudge Jim Cameron his extra 18 years of life, but his hypocrisy was absolutely breathtaking.

I've seen 6 young relatives and friends (ranging from 13 to 40 years old) die in hospital in the last 15 years, None were transplant candidates, but who could say they didn't deserve the same chance as Jim Cameron?
Posted by Johnj, Thursday, 21 June 2007 8:47:20 PM
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Nice one, Johnj.

One reason I'm acutely interested in this issue is that a close relative of mine was fortunate enough to receive a liver transplant last year, and I'm witnessing firsthand the positive results of organ donation.

She is a woman in her 40s who had contracted a liver disease iatrogenically, via a blood transfusion during the birth of one of her children. Since her late diagnosis a few years ago, her health had rapidly declined to the extent that the available treatments were apparently deemed to be too dangerous, and she was consigned to the 'list' (and all that entails) for a couple of years.

After a couple of cruelly false alarms, she had in fact given up hope and had planned her own 'living wake' when the call finally came through. She went through hell during and after surgery, but now is living a relatively 'normal' life - in fact, her quality of life is better than it has been for years, notwithstanding a fairly heavy medication regime and obviously abstemious lifestyle.

Her liver apparently came from a young man who had died in a car accident.

What interests me most about the idiotic comments from aqvarivs above is that he is a medical doctor. How on earth could the young man who died in the car accident have met with my relative in order to ascertain her deservingness of his liver? What had she done that deserved the opprobrium that Dr Aqvarivs directed towards her disease (that she had contracted in medical hands)? Her life is certainly worth living from her perspective, so what value is the good doctor's snarky dismissal of the post-transplantee's quality of life?

It seems to me that this quack has traded in his Hippocratic Oath for hypocritical drivel. Heaven help any of his patients who might possibly benefit from an organ transplant - because Dr Aqvarivs apparently won't.
Posted by CJ Morgan, Thursday, 21 June 2007 9:54:39 PM
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CJ Morgan, thanks for pronouncing me Doctor. Please deposit the concomitant salary to my palpal account. You make my previous post not incidental with your emotionalism and character assassination. How do you type with both feet in your mouth and all your hand wringing?
Posted by aqvarivs, Thursday, 21 June 2007 11:45:00 PM
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As aqvarivs didn't refute my apparently faulty memory of his occupation above, I took it to be confirmation that he's a doctor. My apologies.

However, given his snide, selfish and idiotic comments on this topic, we can be very grateful for that fact.
Posted by CJ Morgan, Friday, 22 June 2007 7:10:05 AM
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