I don't think that donation should be automatic. There are a lot of people who have personal or religious reasons why they do not want to donate parts of their bodies after death. This law as you describe it, however, sounds great, and I do hope it helps to bring up the number of needed organs that are donated.

As for me, I'm a donor, and I would pretty much donate anything I could after death--I'd actually be fine with having nothing left to bury, if it meant potentially saving another life.

Wow, talk about coercive policy making..

I'm totally with Jude.

Honestly, I don't have a problem with the automatic donation assumption. If you have personal or moral objections to it, you can put it in to have it removed, but I think many people don't care enough to pay attention to donating or not donating organs.

Hey stephley, what is your avatar from? Looks so familiar.

Here, when we get our new medicare card, it comes with a label you stick in the back that says "I authorize the retrieval of my organs and tissue after my death: Yes or No"
That seems very similar to what NJ wants to do.

I dont agree with Automatic donation, but i do agree that we need to educate people on what *exactly* donation is and what it means to the people waiting.

Jude, my daughter says it's Su-nada (sp) from Naruto. She's obsessed and picked this out when I said I was going to retire Bobby Murcer.

I agree that automatic donation is a bad idea. My religion forbids me from giving anything to anyone. I hope the government respects my right to religious freedom.

(I hope more people got through that without laughing, than I did.)

Seriousily, I don't liek automatic donation, but I agree with mandatory education. Knowledge is power, and (in general) people will choose to help others, when they can.

Thanks, steph I've never seen that, so I guess she just reminded me of something else, then.

only 24.5%??? That really shouldn't surprise me considering that I think I'm the only one of my friends that checked yes. They say they're afraid the doctors won't work as hard to save you and they're parents would consent anyway. I prefer the comfort of knowing that if I'm in a horrible accident, something good could come of it.

If there's life after death, I definitely expect new body parts - these are used and they've got sugar and fat all over them!

I better get to pick and choose those new body parts of mine!

Hmmmmm, Frosted stephley...

not all states make you do this?

I had to choose here in La.

I was just about to say the same thing, syako. I had to choose here in CA as well.

I've got to say it almost bothers me when people refuse to be organ donors. I'll give you that if its against your religion then I understand, but it just seems so selfish for people with no religious conflicts to say no. Honestly I had a discussion with one person and she kept telling me that they were hers and she just wanted them still inside her when she was dead. I just don't get why people want to keep them, its not like you need them. And it definitely seems unreasonable to think a doc would let you die just because you were an organ donor. Your death should be equal to the death of another without the organ donation. And if more people would just donate their organs, then they really wouldn't have to worry about a critical patient's organ being needed, they could get the organ from someone who had already passed.

O.K., who want's my brain when I'm gone?

Does it have to be for medical reasons, or can they be culinary, hypno?

I was thinking more interior design but anything domestic and you've stuck gold.

I call dibs on your brain, then! You seem to have quite a lot, so I can use part for decorating and the other part for...well...dinner parties

There is NO good reason not to donate your organs. You're denying someone else, someone's child, mother, friend, the chance to have a healthy life. I have a hard time believing that those of you whose religions "don't allow them to donate" really even know what you're talking about. Even Muslims and Mormons are allowed to donate their organs, for crying out loud.
I'm not gonna be PC and sugar coat this. You're standing by and watching someone slowly die. It's cruel and stupid.

LOL! Jude your crazy and hey you'll never have to worry about trippin up in a pair of heels honey. Joke ;-)>

Cheers!

I am super creeped out by organ donation, but I always say yes anyways. I don't want the DMV lady to judge me.

I see your point foxie but I really don't think we need to rely on the anti to pro organ donor converts. There are enough (uninformed) people out there to supply the need for donors and then some who if simply informed would say yes.

I know a lot of people who just never think about it but when if it comes up they say sure why not.

I'm not donating my organs so that some medical students in NYU can study me on a slab. It may be selfish but the whole idea of organ transplants creep me out.

"It may be selfish but the whole idea of organ transplants creep me out."

Frogandprince, if you needed an organ transplant and would die unless you got it, would it still creep you out?

Just curious.

Actually, yes, it would. To have someone else's parts inside of me? At which point am I myself or that other person?

That's a really interesting perspective. From what I understand, you're saying that if, say, you had to have a liver transplant in order to survive, the fact that your new liver came from another person might alter the intangible qualities that make you, you?

Actually, I didn't mean the intangible qualities. I meant the very real, physical qualities. For instance, if someone built a boat a hundred years ago, and over those hundred years each piece was slowly replaced in order to maintain the boat until every piece had been replaced, would the boat still be the object with all new pieces? Or would it be the discarded pile of old pieces? If my organs are replaced, would they still be mine, or forever belong to the dead person? It's way too creepy of a notion for me to wrap my head around.

Oh, I see where you're coming from now.

Hey, thanks for answering my question so thoughtfully! It's good to hear a different perspective on stuff like this

I wonder why, since you'd be dead anyways, you wouldn't at least donate your organs and let someone else make the choice for themselves as to whether or not it's too creepy. It wouldn't make any difference to you once you're dead, you wouldn't be around to have to TRY to wrap your head around it, but it would make literally a world of difference to someone else.

That's assuming that my organs actually go to another person. Like I said, I wouldn't want future doctors in NYU or whereever cutting me up on a slab. Maybe in death I wouldn't mind, but it's when I'm alive that I have to consent to organ donation, and seeing as how the whole thing creeps me out, I can't bring myself to consent.

You're thinking of body donation, which is different. Organ donation is donating organs to people who need them. Body donation means donating your entire body to science.

Organs can still be studied by scientists and doctors after you've died, can't they?

If you're a body donor, yes. Other than that, they're examined to the extent that the medical staff needs to examine them in order to have a successful transplant.

Let's not forget, also, that you'd be examined upon having an autopsy and being embalmed anyways.

I just thought of another question for you, frogandprince: do you have the same feelings about giving blood/receiving a blood transfusion?

You don't always have an autopsy upon death, and even if I weren't examined by scientists/doctors, I still have less of a philosophical problem with being embalmed than with having a piece of me live on in another person. When I'm dead, I want all of me dead, rather than part of me to live on as someone else. It makes it seem...I don't know, like I was less unique or important, because pieces of me could easily be interchanged with someone else. Like I said, selfish, but that's just what I think.

Honestly, I've never thought about blood transfusions. I can't donate blood because I've got the trait for sickle cell anemia, so it's never come up. I don't know if I would have problems receiving someone else's blood, since eventually that person's blood will just be recycled away and my body will make it's own blood.

Well it's extremely sad that you feel that way. Hopefully your family never has to go through what you very well may be forcing other families to go through.

You can designate in a will or health care directive exactly what can and can't be done with your organs - you can direct that they may be used for transplant but not for education or scientific purposes.

I don't really want to donate..it's just that it gives me more comfort about dying, which I'm already afraid of. I just feel like I came to the world whole, I want to return to it whole. And I'm not sure whether I believe in souls/spirits, but I do believe that my body is all I'll ever have, she's my closest friend.