Organ donation and consent
The Government plans to introduce an opt-out system for organ donation. (https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2022/11/21/plans-for-soft-opt-out-organ-donation-system-to-go-to-cabinet-by-end-of-the-month/)
This is a system whereby organs will be removed from patients’ bodies upon death, for transplant, if they have not expressly forbidden it. Otherwise, consent will be presumed.
The opt-out regime is based on the assumption that when inevitable death is approaching, the State or the hospitals own our bodies and can dispose of their parts, unless we or our family explicitly object.
This principle is not acceptable, even if it is motivated by the noble intent of addressing the problem of shortage of organs for transplant in Ireland.
Donation should arise from an informed and deliberate decision.
An opt-out system does not properly respect the principle of informed consent.
If the current opt-in regime is not adequate to satisfy the need for donors, it could be improved so that every patient, when visiting their GP or a hospital, should be explicitly asked to express their option on the matter.
An opt-out system is detrimental not only for those who are not aware of the details of the legislation, probably the majority of people, but particularly for vulnerable groups in society such as those who do not have adequate language skills, or cannot fully consent.
Donation must remain a choice freely made and taking without asking is not giving. Our organs are not at the State’s disposal.
@angelobottone
This is a position I've never understood. I agree that the decision to donate whatever needs to be made freely as whatever you donate is being sacrified by yourself in favor to others. But this holds true as long as a persons alive since 1) you don't really sacrifice anything when your dead as you certainly have no use of any organs in this state and 2) consent isn't possible anymore.
As long as your relatives don't plan to put your organs on shelf, they probably don't need it either, so I can't see no valid reason for an op-in system in this case which would hurt society in the long run.
@bloc We respect people wills even when they are dead, with regard to their bodies, their funerals, their belonging, etc. Somehow, we survive our own death, and leave a material and spiritual legacy. The disposal of what is left of us is a delicate matter, heavily regulated by cultural and legal norms.
@bloc I appreciate your point of view. I don't think the wishes of the deceased are of direct value to the relatives only. Sometimes are detrimental to the interests of the relatives, and sometimes there are no relatives but we still honour the wishes. We do because we value the deceased, including their dead bodies, intrinsically, for what they are, rather than instrumentally, for what they could be used for. We don't force people to donate their organs when alive, even if that could save lives, and so we don't it when they are dead. Respect for the body is linked to the dignity of every person, which doesn't end with death.
@angelobottone
While I can see your point, I still consider the needs of the living, especially in an urgent and potentially life-saving case like organ donation, to be more important than some rather metaphysical needs of the dead.
It's true we don't force the living to donate organs even if it could save lifes, as this would mean a serious decrease of life quality. This does not hold true for the dead, I wouldn't even speak about "forcing" in this context.
I also value the respect for the dead as everyone else, however to me the body's physical integrity is not necessarily a requirement for this respect. We can still mourn for a person and celebrate his or her life without the need of a intact body as physical representation.
TL;DR I see this from a point where a dead body has nothing to loose anymore, therefore the need for a life-saving donation should come first.
On a side note, I highly appreciate the discussion.
@angelobottone
The legal norms is just whats at discussion here. Cultural norms seem to be a pretty bad advisor in terms of life and death, as even within a single country there are almost infinitely many different of them.
Funerals and belongings are of direct value to the relatives of a dead, spiritually and materially, respectively. Organs provide for none of these to anyone not in direct need of one.
Overall, holding to an opt-in to organ donation for some nebulous reasons we can apparently not even lay out concretely while on the other hand lifes are at stake seems pretty selfish to me. This is just my personal point of view.