What are your feelings on organ donation?

What could possibly be “wrong” about donating your organs? You don’t need them once you’re dead. If they can save another life, what possible reason would there be for not donating?

I think it is totally selfish not to.

Show them this and then ask them which one of these people should die because you didn’t give them your organs.

It makes me feel good to no that i could save life after mine is gone. And in a way its like a part of me will live on.:)

I’m a donor even though I intend to keep my parts as long as possible.

I can’t imagine why your family would oppose it. Ask them why they do.

First of all I think it’s none of your family’s business. If it’s what you want to do, it’s a true gift to someone, or at the very least, a gift to research. It’s the only way I know of for you to be helpful after you are dead.

This is a personal decision that should be made without reference to anyone else. Your family is entitled to their opinions, you are entitled to yours. You don’t need to convince them that you are right, and they don’t have any business trying to convince you otherwise. I applaud your decision. Thank you in advance for the new lease on life you’ll be giving someone.

A few days after my father passed away, we received a thank you note (not too detailed, no names), saying his donated parts had been transplanted. I was really pleased and proud.

I got my permit when I turned 15. I’m agnostic and it seemed like the right thing to do. And for the special ones, shilolo offers input here.

When I am dead, I no longer need anything. If any of my organs can help someone else even the tiniest bit, they are more than welcome to them.

@worriedguy .. They just feel i should be buried intact. But i have also told them i wish to be creamated. sorry if i spelled that wrong.

My logic was much like yours, once I’m dead it’s not like I’ll be needing them so why not give someone who does a chance.

I would be very happy to think that I could still be of use to people after I’m gone.

Thank you all, i feel alot better about what i am doing now that i have heard your responses.

I am all for it and I specified that they can take whatever they want…just make sure I’m dead ;))

@lucillelucillelucille I’ve told my family the same thing—be absolutely sure!!!

It’s either the doctors or the worms who get my organs after I kick the bucket. And the doctors can use them to save other people’s lives.
Not such a hard choice.

I’d be very curious why anyone would want anyone else to be buried intact. What difference does it make?

@thriftymaid @lucillelucillelucille Trust me, they make damn sure you’re not coming back before they start removing organs. Actually, the tests are more thorough for organ donors than for non-organ donors.

I’ve been an organ donor for years & years. I agree 100% with all the posts here. And as for your family, it’s really not their decision. It’s YOURS.

@grumpyfish
Whoa.
Imagine the normal tests misdiagnose you and only the more thorough donor tests show you can still wake up. Then being a donor would save your own life.

I am an organ donor , and it says so on my license.

I’m an organ donor. When I signed up I thought best to my parents, my mum wasn’t happy, I got the “I don’t want you to die” speech. If I can help someone out of my death then it’s worth it. Most people want to live, so to them it’s the greatest gift I could give.

I amost think people should be deemed organ doners unless they have signed something to say otherwise. We will all go back to the soil eventually so what difference does it make if your organs are hanging around longer than your soul.

Organ donation is great, but I think donating my body to science would profit more people. I am looking to find the appropriate paperwork to make my wishes known.

With a moniker like FireMadeFlesh, I would think you would be of interest to science!

I just want to know the reasons why his family opposes it…...

I’m glad to give any part that might help someone else. Just bury what’s left next to Meg.

@janbb Haha I like it! Maybe my organs contain thermolite – now that would be an interesting discovery.

I am a full supporter of organ donation, and my husband knows full well that I want to help as many people as possible after I die.

However, I do not have “organ donor” on my license. I’ve heard too many tales about hospitals doing less-than-their-best to preserve the life of a registered donor, in hopes of being able to harvest organs. You can have all the organs you want, after I’m done with them. Thanks.

There’s one good reason I can think of why one might not want to be a donor.

Instead of having your body put into a coffin as worm food, you can also choose to have it put in the fridge instead, in hopes that future medicine will be able (and future politics will be willing) to fix it up and resuscitate you. To that end it would be nice if your body would still be complete so you can continue to use it.

On the other hand, if you have enough confidence in the future of medicine, you can also give your organs away anyway, and then get cryo’d up. Surely at some point they must solve this donorship sparsity issue with artificial kidneys or cloned livers, and then they can plant one into you again.

I think it is delicious.

I am all for it. In fact, I think it should be manditory. @Seek_Kolinahr What if your husband goes first, or at the same time. How will anyone know your intentions?

I’ve been on the donation list for many years.
They can have all they want, just give what’s left back.
I don’t want my whole body used as a med student’s lab project.
I know, it is a necessary thing and for those of you who are willing, I am grateful.
I’m just shy I guess.

@stump

It will be written in our will, whenever we get around to writing them.

Pretty much everyone I know knows my feelings toward organ donation. It’s something that has been important to me for a long time. However, it doesn’t quite trump my distrust of the medical business.

@slick44 I agree with you. Anyone who wants can make good use of my old organs when I’m done with them is welcome to them!

@Seek_Kolinahr By the time your will is read, your organs will be mush. Too bad.

@stump Good point.

In states where I’ve, the Secretary of State or DMV records your wishes, and you can sign up online.

For example:
IL
http://www.lifegoeson.com/home1.html

CA
http://www.donatelifecalifornia.org/

MI
https://services.sos.state.mi.us/OrganDonor/Registry.aspx

My husband,who never had a sick day in his life, retired 25 years early, due to a sudden and rare heart disorder. He received life saving heart surgery but no cure. His next step will be a heart transplant, when the time comes. My son has already had heart surgery and currently is stable. Without a doubt I’m a donor.

@Seek_Kolinahr Could you please point me to cases where the hospital has tried less hard to save a patient in the interest of harvesting organs?

@grumpyfish

My sources are word-of-mouth from close friends who work in the medical field.

@Seek_Kolinahr Thanks! Was hoping for something more concrete, but that’s at least reliable information.

I’d really love to see a case like this go to court, although I’m sure the hospital would settle out of court if it looks anything other than frivolous so probably won’t happen.

I don’t think there have been any publicized cases of hospitals trying less hard to save organ donor patients, but I do admit that there have been several troubling cases involving at least the appearance of impropriety.

Dr. Hootan Roozrokh was charged with administering excessive doses of narcotics in order to hasten a patient’s death for organ retrieval. He was already on life support for another reason, and his family decided to remove him from. (It wasn’t a case of doctors being less-than-zealous in trying to save his life, since he’d been in that condition for a few days.) Dr. Roozrokh was acquitted, but the publicity may have had a chilling effect on willingness to donate.

Oops. I should have provided a link.

My thoughts go something like this:
If something happens to me and it ends up that I die, well I’ll be dead. Therefore I will no longer need my heart, my liver, kidneys, whatever. I’ll be dead. Why not have them go to someone who needs them. Especially if it can potentially save a life.

I have already agreed to donate all (and I mean all) my organs to the necrophilia society.

@beautifulbobby193 Several men have willed their… manhood… to the Icelandic Phallological Museum which is an excellent visit if you’re in Reykjavik.

I wish it had been an option for my father. At one point it may have been; however, he had been misdiagnosed and was deemed a poor candidate by the time he went through the process to be approved to be on the donor list. I might still have my father here today, instead of gone.

I can’t ever think of a reason not to be a donor.

@Fyrius
Nobody has anything to say about cryonics? I thought it would be an interesting new take on the issue.

@Fyrius To me, cryonics is so 20th century!

@Fyrius There was a recent Fluther cryonics thread:

Is cryonization a practical way to be revived later?

@janbb
That’s what I thought about anaglyph 3D films.

They were actualy so 19th century, weren’t they?

@janbb
Is that so?
At any rate I think this is the sort of fad subject that passed out of our attention without ever actually becoming obsolete.

Started then

@Fyrius Cryogenics is quite silly in my opinion. The freezing process destroys most tissue due to the expansion of water turning to ice. That ruptures the cell membranes, so when they heat you up again you would leak fluid everywhere.

There is no point to freezing the whole body anyway, because by the time we have that sort of technology we will be able to perform microsurgery on a cellular level and successfully reconnect the spinal cord (both are in the extreme distant future), so only the brain needs to be preserved. This preserved brain could then be attached to a cloned body, which would not have been damaged by the cryogenic process.

@FireMadeFlesh
I’m not surprised a person made of fire isn’t enthusiastic about being frozen.
But it seems tissue rupture is not as big an issue as it seems.

“Long-term cryopreservation can be achieved by cooling to near 77.15 Kelvin, the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. It is a common mistaken belief that cells will lyse (burst) due to the formation of ice crystals within the cell, but this only occurs if the freezing rate exceeds the osmotic loss of water to the extracellular space[13] (and it is virtually impossible to cool a large tissue that quickly). However, damage from freezing can still be serious; ice may still form between cells, causing mechanical and chemical damage. Cryonics organizations use cryoprotectants to reduce this damage. Cryoprotectant solutions are circulated through blood vessels to remove and replace water inside cells with chemicals that prevent freezing. This can reduce damage greatly,[14] but freezing of whole people still causes injuries that are not reversible with present technology.[citation needed]” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics#Obstacles_to_success

But yes, I suppose freezing just the brain wouldn’t have a much lower chance of success, and it’s probably less expensive. And then the organs can be used anyway.

I’ve been an organ donor since I’ve had my license. Theres no reason not to be one.

@Fyrius Well of course not, if I were frozen I would be extinguished – and that is not something I want just yet.