Organ donation.

No real downside, somebody has to change the system soon as organs are in increasingly short supply and demand is rising. Not sure if people are just lazy, uninformed or more self centred these days.

Renal units are forecd to rely on more living donors and there is a natural limit to the amount of people who can/will do that.

Agreed.

I've got an old Yamaha at home that someone can have for free.

Only downside is some sentimental slush about organs being taken and tawdry headlines playing on the public grief. This must be one of those issues we can agree on outside party politics if me and Dr J can both endorse. I signed the organ donation register ages ago,only think my liver least useful !

the organ trade is brisk...

unfortunately your not in that club

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=105711§ionid=3510203

What is the downside to adopting an opt out system of organ donation?

An opt out would be tacit agreement that the state is the owner of your body and that it can do what it likes with it once you are dead. By opting out you are asking the state to abide by your wish at its convenience.

Currently you are the owner of your body and you need to opt in to give it away.

the organ trade is brisk...

unfortunately your not in that club

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=105711§ionid=3510203

So you really believe that gangs of jews are kidnapping arab children, harvesting their kidneys in Morocco and selling them in New York?

Story from that unimpeachable source, Iranian TV.

One slight problem is that when a kidney donation is performed, the recipient is already in pre-op and the kidney is on ice as soon as it's out. Many centres have both donor and recipient in theatres at the same time. At the most, there is a two-three hour gap.

Morocco - New York is not two-three hours, or do the jews have ufo technology as well?

citroen999

What a ridiculous link - do you (and any other anti-semites) really believe that people belonging to a religion really get together and conspire to rob the world via the banking system, and run the world via the media, and entertain the world via the film industry, and now harvest the organs of innocent Arab children, as part of some grand global domination which only 'they' know about?

How do they go about this? Secret Jewish societies?

The crass ignorance shown on this forum never ceases to amaze.
Think about this..... If 'THEY' were as all-powerful, and all-knowing as you and your vile ilk would have everyone believe, don't you think you would have been found, and silenced?

The downside is that people's organs could be harvested against their will and without their consent. The organs do not belong to you, us, the state, or anyone else but the person they were growing in and it requires their *active* consent to take them.

STUDYFORM 25 Nov 00:11

If 'THEY' were as all-powerful, and all-knowing as you and your vile ilk would have everyone believe, don't you think you would have been found, and silenced?

While I agree with the thrust and the conclusion, silencing the US government has, hitherto, proved difficult.

I carry a donor card. If it were made an opt out system though, I would opt out immediately. Its a nasty development, the Gvt getting first dibs on your body. Sure, I haven't got a child on the waiting list for a life saving transplant, but it is another intrusion along with so many others.

This is where individualism comes up hard against what libertarians would probably damn as 'social utilitarianism'.

The argument gets a lot less abstract when you watch a close family member on the brink of death, believe me. I was able to donate a kidney, but if I had not been a good match the recipient would not be here and my life would be wrecked as well.

Whether or not you own your organs when dead I leave for the lawyers, but the present situation costs lives every week, and opponents have to accept that.

It should be opt-in, but the question should be asked on all passport/driving licence applications and renewals. The credit card bit of the driving licence could indicate whether or not the person is a donor. The problem is less that people don't want to be donors than that it is 'out-of-sight, out-of-mind.'

It should never be opt-out.

Possibly asked on other forms too.

I would welcome if they took away the next of kin consent bit, which stops a lot of donations. If I am carrying a card, I have made my choice, thank you.

Agreed, although my dad, sister and I are all well aware of each others wishes (they're both too squeamish about the eyes to donate their corneas, whereas I don't give a toss, I won't be using them).

If im dead im going to be pretty annoyed about it and unlikely to want to help someone ive never met.

I think that is the way to go, History Maker. Simply give more opportunity to sign up. I have easily been convinced the opt-out system is a bad idea.

I wanted to give blood for many years and only just plucked up the courage last year. In so doing it made me think about signing as an organ donor and I signed up online.

5% of eligible people donate blood, it would be a fair starting point for these people to be asked if they would like to sign up at each session.

i wanted to leave my body to medical reasearch,my wife was'nt to pleased about it. but i thought wot the heck. Im dead and perhaps it could make her loss more bearable. so i made enquiries into this. bloody hell they are really picky. if you have a PM they dont want you, if you die with cancer they dont want you. but the best one is. if your local medical university dont need your body but 1 further afield wants it they expect your family to pay all the trasport costs to transport your body to them. after a very short think i have decided not to bother donating my body.