Let’s talk donation. Watch out I’m going soft. I may not want to save the trees and the ozone but saving lives is something I want to spend time on.
Opting to donate your organs is a life saving task that does not take more than a few minutes and absolutely will not hurt a bit.
If you haven’t signed up to donate your organs I now ask…what exactly were you planning on doing with your heart, kidneys, and liver when you die? Maybe you were hoping your family would keep them in the freezer in an effort to remember you. Trust me - not happening.
I can also dispelled any fears of the DMV (signing up is quick and Division of Motor Vehicles free).
In Virginia it is easy to register to donate your organs. A few seconds at Save 7 Lives has the ability to literally do just that.
Three Virginians a week die waiting for organ transplants. That is just in VIRGINIA.
There are millions, yes, millions of people (world wide) that are in need of an organ transplant . For all you know your neighbor could need one. If he doesn’t need one now he might need one in the very near future.
One in every four persons in the US will end up on kidney dialysis (they are in disparate need of a kidney). 17,000 people in the US are in need of a liver transplant. These are just a few of the situations that call for an organ transplant (in fact both of these can also be done with a living donor-another time, another topic).
Those in need of a transplant play a waiting game everyday, hoping it will not be their last. Very few people ever offer to be living donors and finding the right match in the right situation for a deceased donor can be almost impossible. Signing up to be a donor increases their odds.
I realize there can be religious reason behind the decision not to donate. There are also other concerns that come along with such a decision. I highly recommend checking out the site, it may answer any questions you have or even concerns.
One person’s organs can save up to seven lives. A heart, a liver, two kidneys, two lungs, and a pancreas if in good condition can all be transplanted into people in need. You can save even more lives by signing up to be a tissue donor as well. You can sign up to be both an organ and tissue donor at the same time.
I can think of no better way to be remembered than as a hero. That is exactly what organ donors are to the people they save.
http://www.save7lives.org/
Popularity: 27% [?]
Tagged as: Body Parts, Donation, Organs, Save Lives
Thanks, Lu Sid. I’m registered.
I want to apologies to those counting on my internal organs- this weekend I was not kind to them.
I feel misled- isn’t red wine suppose to be good for you.
Also, donate blood regularly, if you can.
when I got my new license a few months ago, some woman pitched a fit at the DMV because they listed her as an organ donor. She was all, “NO WAY, that is disgusting, print me a new one!” I wanted to punch her and even her husband person thought she was a jerk. seriously, people, you don’t need them. Jesus will love you without your organs.
Sorry, but some people have certain views about death and have certain opinions on how they want their body dealt with, having to do with strong personal beliefs. I do not wish to be an organ donor. Flame away.
@ 5 What if you could donate your organs to puppies?
Nope, shen. I wish I could. Much to my dismay, I think I agree with you. People can do whatever they want with thier own bodies. I’m curious, though. What are the “beliefs” that prevent you from donating your organs?
@6: Harharar
@7: Oh, just strange perceptions of souls, what death means, how bodies should be treated with reverence and not cut open.
@5 even though I like to kid you, I totally respect your choice. There is a part of this process that has always made me uncomfortable; that is people can profit from my death. I know great people who can’t give blood and would give you the shirt off there back. All that anyone can ask is that you seriously consider it.
You can have my organs when you pry them from my cold, dead… wait, what?
For those of us who plan on attaining the rainbow body through direct realization of our mind’s nature, all you will find, supposedly, is a pile of hair and fingernails. Sounds like the organs won’t be available for further duty.
If I don’t, then y’all can have ‘em.
/just had a Big Trouble in Little China flashback (when are they remaking that?)
@9 - Nobody profits from organ donation, only benefits. You can’t sell organs. Profit sounds so bad.
Not to prevent anyone from commenting honestly on the topic, but just remember these organs aren’t for medical experiments or something evil. What if your mom or little girl were the one in need? Do you think it would change your view? Better, what if you knew that you would need one someday? My guess? Everyday you would pray for new people to sign up to donate their organs, cause the next one to do it could save your life.
You can’t sell organs
Well, maybe *you* cant sell organs…
I think it is perfectly acceptable for a person to not want to donate their organs. We all get one body, and it is ours to do what we wish with it. I personally think donating organs is the last act of kindness and goodwill you can perform during your life. By the time I die, I’m going to need all the help I can get to get to any afterlife that may exist. My organs are up for grabs, but you probably won’t want my liver.
@9 You are so wrong on so many levels. Transplant centers, the people who get them, and many others.
Profit isn’t just money it’s the fact of some medical center do transplants other don’t- the ones that do are thought of as better and make higher profits. No one runs transplants at a loss. And this is all before the irrational fears of”coma”, list tampering and the other horrors better left unsaid.
@12 is what I meant
my grandmother sold an old organ she had in the basement for $300. it had a key missing, but still worked.
@13: Um, you just said they are used for evil. Might wanna fix that.
All my organs dissolved in a sea of mezcal.
/eat me
New York has started testing a special ambulance that preps the newly deceased for organ harvest while on the way to the hospital! Ummm… no thanks, I’ll catch the next one.
Thanks Shen
I was trying to work and socialize. Figures.
dieter - I don’t think anyone is in the business to get rich. I certainly doubt they don’t make any money. Doctors generally make money, but actual organs CANNOT be sold.
Over half of the 99,000 Americans on the national transplant waiting list will die before they get a transplant. Most of these deaths are needless. Americans bury or cremate about 20,000 transplantable organs every year. Over 6,000 of our neighbors suffer and die needlessly every year as a result.
There is a simple way to put a big dent in the organ shortage — give organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die.
Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. People who aren’t willing to share the gift of life should go to the back of the waiting list as long as there is a shortage of organs.
Anyone who wants to donate their organs to others who have agreed to donate theirs can join LifeSharers. LifeSharers is a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. Membership is free at http://www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88. There is no age limit, parents can enroll their minor children, and no one is excluded due to any pre-existing medical condition.
I have a question for all those opposed to donating their organs. Would you accept an organ transplant?
@23: I know your intentions are good but the whole “no organs from voluntary for people who don’t want their own corpses cut up” is bull. People who don’t want to donate aren’t always being selfish. Everything isn’t black and white. But thanks for your input.
Insert between and
Ack. Insert “donors” between “vlountary” and “for”.
@16 it’s the “coma” or un-ending life-support thing that scares me about organ donation. i know it’s probably irrational, but i do harbor a fear that if i were on life-support with a cloudy future, and i were an organ donor, i would be on their short list of soon to be available organs and decisions would be made with that in mind, rather than with the intention of sustaining whatever life i had at the time.
/like i said, irrational, but it’s there.
No time to look up the stats, but a lot of countries have vastly increased the ranks of organ donors by making it an opt-out rather than an opt-in process. Don’t want to donate? No big deal. Just fill out this form/go to this website/etc. People like Shen have the motivation to do so. Everyone else either wants to stay in or is too lazy to care.
Win-Win-Lazy!
@25,26,27 that was a beautiful metaphor about fixing a dying sentence with pieces harvested from other sentences that didn’t need them anymore. unfortunately, the operation was not a success and your sentence died on the operating table.
@30 luckily, there were plenty of healthy words and phrases in there that can be donated to posts in need!
@30: Damn. Well, that sentence said it wanted to be cremated.
@32, we should probably respect the sentence’s wishes, but i don’t feel like paying IT for a new monitor…
i think shen has taken plenty of organs in her time. at least since college.
and I really like the point made in 23, but I don’t think it’s that clear cut. If my organs are available but don’t match organ donors in need, I don’t want my organs to go to waste, they can go to a non-organ donor. When I’m dead, I don’t need them anymore.
@34…again with Shen’s compliance!!
Some online thoughts in the jewish religion and organ donation.
Jewish law prohibits desecration of a dead body (”nivul hamet”). A dead person’s body, since it once housed the holy soul, is to be treated with the utmost respect. Every part of the body must be buried - which is why you see the heart-wrenching images of religious Jews dutifully going around after a terrorist bombing, scraping up pieces of flesh and blood for burial.
However, the obligation to preserve human life (”pikuah nefesh”) is an overriding principle of Jewish law. This would support the idea of organ donation.
Organ donation is permitted in the case when an organ is needed for a specific, immediate transplant. In such a case, it is a great mitzvah for a Jew to donate organs to save another person’s life. Organ donation is not necessarily limited to dead people: Someone who can afford to spare a kidney, for example, may donate one to someone in need.
Yet in consideration of the prohibition against desecrating the body, it is forbidden to simply donate to an “organ bank,” where there is no specific, immediate recipient. Furthermore, for general medical research or for students to practice in medical school, a Jew is not permitted to donate organs.
Even when there is a specific, immediate transplant, you need to be careful, because oftentimes in order to obtain organs as fresh as possible, a doctor will remove the organ before the patient is actually “dead” according to Jewish law. The doctor is therefore effectively killing the patient, which is of course forbidden. This means death must be redefined in some cases and that takes time
Other religions have similar problems that the modern world must come to terms with.
@34: Oh no you di’int…
@34 Shen has taken organs?! @37 Have you every taken a Hammond B3, cause they rock, as organs go
I took a Hammond L-100 but I didn’t keep it very long. It needed some work and back then I wasn’t very good at oiling an organ. Thanks to the internet I’ve since learned how to properly oil an organ.
/is that enough?
An article on opt-out organ donation in Great Britain.
@40 Nice article Stanley, I just don’t think the state should ever be able to consider organs their property against that of the family wishes (which is the case currently in opt out countries)
I think Dave and Stanley have great ideas (while I do understand neither devised them - they shared and that’s enough for me). I would be so happy if either of those could be put into action. It is a shame change can take so very long. The opt out one seems especially great since most people won’t take the time to actually opt out. American’s voting numbers are proof. It is hard for me to debate such an issue when I have watched some people close to me die needlessly. It is heart breaking.
while i agree with Lu that the opt-out programs are a great way to increase donor numbers, i have to concur with dieter that the idea of the state considering my organs their property unless i opt-out is a bit scary to me.
41 & 43: I can understand that position, and my answer is: you’d be one to opt out, and if your family feels that strongly about it, they’d encourage you to opt-out.
The reality is, you don’t truly “own” your body in any legal sense once you’ve (tacitly) agreed to live in this particular society. Social contract and all that jazz.
An insightful analogy might be conscription: they government can institute a military draft at any time, hauling you and your body to foreign climes*. (Of course, there are also opt-out-type pressure valves here, e.g., conscientious objector status.)
“the government”, that is.
there were some cases with the hospitals harvesting dead children’s corneas without parental permission. the parents weren’t too happy when they found out, the hospital claimed it was an opt-out thing…i forget the result. i think they were being selfish, personally.
“but, I’m USING them…” - linkypoo
/god bless youtube
the organ donation argument also comes up in another aspect of my life, riding motorcycles. alot of the argument against the relaxation of helmet laws (which i have no problem with, for what it’s worth. the laws being in place, that is) is the high cost of medical care required to take care of non-helmeted cyclists (who are often also uninsured, apparently) falls to the state and other insurance holders. one argument that i’ve got to admit i can understand and agree with is to have riders who choose to ride without a helmet automatically be registered as organ donors. that way we can thin the herd and they can still provide a useful function.
Opt-out is scary for other reasons, too. We’re all able to weigh-in here as to what we’d do, because our access to information gives us that choice. It’s presumptuous to say that people who don’t opt-out are just too lazy or don’t care; it assumes that everyone is privy to the same information channels; many people, sadly, are not. I’ve worked in the legal system long enough to know that much of the misperception and misinformation many people carry about their rights is because they are often cut off from information, both passively and actively.
Making it such a choice is one thing, but let’s make sure there’s a real choice to be made for everyone. It would be interesting to see the demographics on whose organs are taken, and who is opting out with such a program.
49: A fair point, 26 world. I would hope education could address this issue, but it would take quite an effort. I’d be interested to see some data on implementation in other countries.
(Also: welcome to the party. There’s liver ‘n’ onions, along with some nice blood pudding in the fridge. Help yourself!)
@46 “i think they were being selfish, personally.”: who, the parents or the hospital?
@51 parents. what are they doing looking under their dead kids’ eyelids anyway?
Yeah @49 makes a lot of sense. When I’m doing coke. /sarcasm. Horribly selfish motives to not donate. That is it. Unless you’re an Hasidic Jew. Or a Muslim. Living in Pakistan. Big fan of the idea that if you refuse to donate than you can’t get one. So…..you need a blood transfusion after an MVA you don’t want to be cut open in any way. Because your perfect body (Leonard Cohen reference alert..won’t meld to your perfect mind) I’ll alert the media to your hypocrisy. When your child needs a kidney. I’m sure you will feel the same.
@49. You make a good point, and I think that a reasonable solution would be to offer the opt out at the same time you get your new drivers license or ID. That’s when they give you the option to opt in.
there were some cases with the hospitals harvesting dead children’s corneas without parental permission
Oof. I’ll have to keep an eye out for that sort of thing.
i think they were being selfish, personally
Oh have a heart, for cryin out loud.
I’m sure you will feel the same.
I have felt that way for a lung time, but whatever, live and let liver.
My aunt (mom’s sister) died after having to wait too long for a liver transplant. She was my favorite relative. It’s been 15 years and I miss her so much.
I will always encourage people to donate their organs. Even those of you who aren’t always kind to your livers, one of your other organs could be used by a person who truly needs it. Please be a donor.
56: Hear hear, Hooligan. I’m very sorry for your loss.
Thanks for this post Lu Sid. I am a member of LifeSharers and have been signed up as an organ donor since I was 21. Now I am on the kidney transplant list at UVA. It took a lot of hard thinking to decide to sign up, knowing that when I get a kidney someone else does not, especially since with kidneys it isn’t based on severity of need but length of time on the List, partly I surmise because donated kidneys last longer in folks who are not as sick when they get one. My time is “soon” according to UVA, I was called as remote back up about 3 weeks ago. To all those who have signed up to be organ donors, thank you.
Also: One can listen to a very interesting piece on organ transplantation (in this case, a heart) here:
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1222
Its “Act Two”, but I highly recommend the first act as well. Stream it by clicking the little orange “full episode” button.
I love that episode.
also, thanks to Alison and Hooligan for sharing your stories. I hope it convinces some people to donate their organs on the basis of human charity. You never know when you might be the one on the list.
Thank you Stanley and MC. And Alison–good luck!
And now I must confess I have that Monty Python skit about live organ transport stuck in my head. “Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving….”
I find it unfair that people are bashing on non-organ donors. If you are so dedicated to it, why don’t you donate a kidney or a section of your liver. You don’t have to be dead to save a life. Just a thought.
[…] for Friday! What a week! We told you how to donate some organs, a fire broke out, echo died, while finding new iphones we met some newbies, we discussed some […]
62: Brilliant, bboop. You entered a discussion about post-mortem organ donation and made an argument about something quite different.
/for those playing along at home, that’s called “moving the goalposts” and it’s a classical silly-argument strategy.
erm, classic
al. Dammit, coffee. Start working!