Celivia, "You obviously haven't taken part in enough discussion about organ donation either on OLO or with people you meet in your daily life, otherwise you would have, like I did, met people with opinions like this one.."

True, I don't rely on anecdotal evidence alone or in substitution for other evidence and that is the difference.

However I do find that the substantial majority of people are fundamentally good, kind and generous, often to a fault.

The two relevant issues are firstly, the success in harvesting and applying donated organs and secondly, how to encourage more people to donate. There is a lot of wastage of donated organs through administrative problems that need to be resolved, it is not simply a problem that too few body parts have been 'willed' to hospitals in the first place.

In a society that puts individual rights before community good and where there are too many lawyers for available work (resulting in ambulance chasing), there remains the problem that surgical teams and hospitals need to be protected against the litigious few. Even frivolous or vexatious litigation wreaks enormous damage to reputations and programs. Unless better protection to the satisfaction of medical insurers is provided through laws, it is irrelevant whether there is 'opt in' or 'opt out' donation.

What is the use of 'opt out' if the organs are rendered useless through the same administrative procedures and delays that affect the viability of 'opt in' organs?