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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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aqvarivs: "I wouldn't want to give the living any more value than the value that they themselves put on others lives as evidenced by their thinking on taking life when it suits them."

If aqvarivs is equating "taking life" here to abortion (as opposed to, for example, capital punishment, warfare or eating meat), then this makes about as much sense as his demand above that he should be able to meet any potential recipients of his body parts in order to assess their worthiness. One therefore has to conclude that he is still engaging in hypothetical sophistry that privileges the rights and interests of the unborn and deceased over those of the living.

Clever though this may be (at least to him), it is still so much nonsense. I think I should have directed my apology above to the medical profession rather than to aqvarivs, for imagining that one of their number could possibly hold such execrable views.
Posted by CJ Morgan, Sunday, 24 June 2007 8:00:53 AM
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I note that this thread seems to have generated more heat than light. A pity, as this is an important issue, though fraught with emotions.

Late last year I attended the funeral of a cousin who died at 35. He had been sick for nearly 10 years with an enlarged heart, due to a viral infection. He had been placed on the heart/lung transplant list, but had taken himself off the list, due to his concerns about the quality of life after a transplant. He commenced a job that he could cope with, but his health gradually declined. He went back on the transplant list, but after a heart attack (while in hospital) he spent 10 days in intensive care before the machines were turned off. I understood my cousin's reasoning and of course respected his choices. Who knows whether a transplant would have lengthened his life, or improved the life he had.

Potential donors and potential recipients are often not that different, many being unconscious in an intensive care ward. A donor (or recipient) is often not in a position to state their wishes, so it is often up to relatives to decide. It's important to let your next-of-kin know what your views are.

Aqvarius, I find your position interesting, but I'd like to reverse your perspective. If you (or your next-of-kin) were in need of a transplant what questions would you ask of a potential donor to evaluate their worthiness?
Posted by Johnj, Sunday, 24 June 2007 11:37:24 AM
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Johnj, let me say first that what I have posted earlier, in it's entirety, is not opinion so much but rather gruel for thought. I do believe that individuals who champion death ought not to profit by life. Especially the beneficence which is organ donation. They should be held to their personal ideology. Life is not a flexible value to be manipulated at will for any reason. Haven't we done away with the death penalty? If you can determine one life to be of no value, then by extension your life should be held to be of equal value.
As to your question I would answer thus. That the donor has bequeathed his or her organ(s) for a future use of another after the donor has finished with them. A Doctor will determine if they're viable for use at that time. Not all are. Sadly many of our young are taken from us through life's many fatal accidents. That advances in medical science allows an ailing person to be sustained for sometime through such an accidental death and an organ transplant is a marvelous thing. Should a killer, anyone who has decided another life to be immaterial be given that gift?
In one of my philosophy classes the question was asked,"How would you think post transplant, knowing it was a serial murderers, or rapist, etc., heart that now beat with in your chest?"
You would have been intrigued by the many different answers not limited to, I don't care. I'm alive is all that matters.

I don't think in my own mind that I am comfortable with a "system" of organ donation. A system for dispensing of donor organs yes but, not a system for donating. Systematic donation is too open to abuse and the gift of organ donating should remain sacrosanct and free from violation.
Posted by aqvarivs, Sunday, 24 June 2007 7:30:58 PM
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