I think asking people this question when they apply for a passport would be a good middle ground, and/or maybe on the intake form for their GP, or other kinds of government interactions (voting registration might make sense in the UK specifically). People would still be able to opt-out of choosing at all, but this would catch the large group of people who just never bothered to register.
This already happens. When you apply for a driving licence, you are asked whether you would like to be put on the donor registry.
I am no fan of opt out since with the right opt-in they could get enough.
This rule has been decided by elected leaders after many discussions. As a citizen you opt in by default into many things that have been different in the older times. School, health care, the BBC, etc. some of which you even cannot opt out at all. Why should organ donation be treated differently?
It is however strange to me that rather than to communicate clearly with its populace, improve/innovate in terms of recruitment methods, and generally “educate” the populace, a government reaches for an option that I would consider morally dubious and potentially harmful to the overall opinion on organ donation further down the line whenever that inevitable case comes up when a donation is carried out without properly seeking consent. I say inevitable here, because out of the three countries (Sweden, Japan, and the UK) I have lived in long enough to form an opinion, the UK government is by far the worst and its institutions the most poorly managed.
As for “elected”, the UK has a very large expat community and many of us are well over the 12-month limit and are being “volunteered” as donors without being close to having the right to vote for the political body that enacted this legislation. Make of that what you will.
> it is clear that despite a massive amount of popular support the UK government fails to communicate effectively with its populace.
I have no idea where you get that opinion from... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56818750 (sarcasm tag, just in case :-p)
I live in the UK, I’ve been a registered organ donor for as long as I can remember.
I’ve opted out.
I’m not a bag of parts that belongs to an all powerful state.
I suppose "organ donation" might be better phrased as "organ recovery" then?
You can't use it anymore, and it would go to waste... Hence it should be recovered. People might not have a right to have your own organs specifically, but it's society's duty to implement organ recovery.
Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to provide for everyone's human rights.
That being said, it cannot be used as an argument in a civilized discussion between adults.
> Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
> Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
> Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
> Susan: They're not the same at all!
> Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and THEN show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet... you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some... some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.
It’s one thing to ask if they will help someone in need and another to say “we’re doing this are you going to stop us?”
By opting out, when I was previously on the donor list, I can spare them that.
You might say it will be handled more tactfully but there’s historical precedent that it won’t be.
This is an unpopular opinion but I feel compelled to express it; I think this law is wrong.
There should have been more debate and finesse used in the drafting of it.
Cremated, buried, put out to sea on a flaming raft, whatever. Who cares if the corpse I left behind is short an eyeball, a couple tendons, and a liver?
More importantly, if those body parts can be used to save someone else's life, I don't believe they should even have the right to care. People who are still alive and need an organ to survive are more important than whatever squeamishness and perception of agency my family might have.
The concern that doctors could theoretically let people die more easily to get their organs is another matter entirely, but that's not the topic in this sub-thread.
Rejection is horrifying and can be deadly. Donated organs can introduce deadly infections. If all goes well, you will be on anti rejection meds the rest of your life.
It's not the magic cure all with no downside that people often seem to imagine.
I don't think anyone gets a liver transplant because of an article in Goop. I imagine that in most cases, they do it because they're going to die without it.
But I think it's time for me to walk away from this discussion.
You might want to look into the definition of odds.
And organ “printing” is simply not there yet.
Do we have agency over our own bodies or not?
How can I keep that agency and help someone under an opt-out system? That has been taken from me when better, workable opt-in solutions weren’t tried.
To take it to extremes, should the government be able to take “spare” kidneys from live donors?
Should criminals be forced to donate blood?
What about children that die in child birth, should they be harvested for organs too? ‘Cause the NHS were doing that at one time.[1]
Where does the line stop?
Right up until the point it's no longer your own body because you're dead, yes.
> To take it to extremes, should the government be able to take “spare” kidneys from live donors?
No, they're not dead.
> Should criminals be forced to donate blood?
No, but again, they're not dead.
> What about children that die in child birth should they be harvested for organs too?
The law only covers adults with the opt-out which would make this another no.
> Where does the line stop?
Pretty much exactly where the law says it does - "All adults in England will be considered as having agreed to donate their own organs when they die unless they record a decision not to donate (known as ‘opting out’) or are in one of the excluded groups."
[edit: Missed the A in "All"]
No, and that's the point. When you're dead you cannot have agency over your body even if you had the right to.
I find it weird how people compare this to the government treating them like a "bag of parts", as if they were more than a rotting corpse at that point. If you have a religious belief or some other reason that makes you think otherwise then go ahead and opt out, I don't have an issue with that.
> To take it to extremes, should the government be able to take “spare” kidneys from live donors?
Who ever asked for that? If the time came where the UK government started acting like the CCP the law today wouldn't matter either way.
And it’s not like it is forced, especially with the family being able to “stop” it even when it happens. The status quo was a different tradeoff.
I believe the answer is somewhere in-between. We certainly don't have full agency over our own bodies. Can't take the drugs you want or need without asking permission, you're highly encouraged to stay healthy, vaccinations are mandatory, suicide is highly discouraged.
As always, it's a trade-off between the individual self and the society we live in.
Aside from the fact that this statement is wrong - the state can conscript you if there's a war, or imprison you - I'm wondering what actual objection you have to donating parts of your body after you are dead? Personally speaking once I'm dead, I'm not going to care in the slightest.
I think the idea that someone might see with my eyes after my death to be a beautiful one and I’ve been a lifelong card carrying organ donor.
I object to presumed consent.
A gift is not a gift if it’s not freely given.
My aim was simply to answer the parent’s claim that I might have an issue with organ transplant and that’s not the case.
> because it’s the right thing
“What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so”
This is nonsense, because this is the standard fallacy of any survey. You take a sample and extrapolate out to the general population. If your sample is not representative, then the statement is false.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that we should mandate a law whereby nobody can claim "% of X agree to Y" unless it is specifically stated "% of X surveyed out of a sample size of N agree to Y. Here's a link to the methodology and questions."
Organ donation is good and important, but default opt-in is a bad decision, and the reasoning listed for it is worse.
https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/get-involved/news/hundreds-...
But alas, no methodology and questions on that page.
[1]: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/opt-out-organ-donation-ma...