What's your thoughts on being an organ donor?

[K. Darien Freeheart]

I see that kola's beliefs pretty much stem around divine creation. If I accepted an omnipotent, omniscient diety, I probably would consider his actions "as good as it gets".

What bugs the hell out of me with organ donating is, (i am an organ donor) is everyone gets paid for my my bits and pieces except me (or my family), same with blood donations.

Most people can't respond to this because it's kinda creepy and most people avoid creepy. You CAN sell your blood. Well, at least, when I was in college in Michigan, I sold my blood to a company that advertised on the local media, so I assume it was legal. They paid $15-20 (depending on blood type) per donation up to three donations a week, one per day. They also did all of the initial screenings (AIDS test, hepatitis, physical, et cetera) at their own expense so it literally cost nothing to start doing except time.

[Beth221]

i for some reason dont think you can sell your blood anymore, correct me if I am wrong.

[ReverendRyan]

I see that kola's beliefs pretty much stem around divine creation. If I accepted an omnipotent, omniscient diety, I probably would consider his actions "as good as it gets".

What bugs the hell out of me with organ donating is, (i am an organ donor) is everyone gets paid for my my bits and pieces except me (or my family), same with blood donations.

Most people can't respond to this because it's kinda creepy and most people avoid creepy. You CAN sell your blood. Well, at least, when I was in college in Michigan, I sold my blood to a company that advertised on the local media, so I assume it was legal. They paid $15-20 (depending on blood type) per donation up to three donations a week, one per day. They also did all of the initial screenings (AIDS test, hepatitis, physical, et cetera) at their own expense so it literally cost nothing to start doing except time.

You're thinking plasma donation, not whole blood. And the way it is legal is that plasma that's paid for goes to research, not transfusions, and you're not technically even paid for it: you donate the plasma, and they compensate you for your time.

[srqrebel]

I am a organ donor, I seriously have my witness signatures and everything... however it is specified that I will only donate my brain, nothing else. So next time sometime in the future when some poor body has a damaged brain and I've probably crashed my Kawasaki ZX12R I can rest peacefully knowing I am doing all I can to save some unfortunates body.

That's cheating. That wouldn't be a brain transplant for them, it's a body transplant for you.

I thought that was the whole point

Personally, I can see no justified argument for not donating organs.

How about this one: My organs are my property, therefore I need no justification for how I choose to dispose of them.

I am most definitely NOT responsible to others for their well-being. I am responsible to myself for my own well-being. My responsibility to others is to not cause them harm. What I withhold from them is absolutely none of their business, as long as I have made no voluntary agreement to the contrary.

[Raineyrocks]

That's a toughie. 
Politically connected people will never die due to the waiting list for a rare donation. 
Bob Smith, (he swears that is his real name) promotes down on the lower right of his site  http://www.smith.mn/  something called Life Sharers  http://www.lifesharers.org/   .  If you are an organ donor, you get put on a second list, one specifically for organ donors only.  If something goes wrong on your body, you will be elegible for a donation faster than others due to your willingness to donate your own. 

Wow, that's pretty neat, I never knew that!  After seeing the movie Eyes, I don't think I want to be an organ receiver though.

[Raineyrocks]

...I don't want a rich person getting my organs unless it's his turn on the number sheet.  Plus I wonder if doctors would work as hard as they could to keep me alive, especially if there's some rich guy/girl waiting for an organ.

Just wanted to point out that the real evil here is political manipulation, which amounts to legitimized fraud.

In a world where there is no "government" tampering with the economy, hence no more colossal parasitic burden on productive businesspeople, wealth would increasingly trend toward those who earn it through outstanding efforts at creating and marketing genuine values for others. Likewise, in such a world, those who are chonically poor would be those who do not make good on their personal responsibility to cultivate competency at creating and marketing values for others.

It would only be fair, IMO, for those noble individuals who provide the rest of us with the greatest values, to be rewarded with priority when it comes to limited lifesaving resources. That is the justice inherent in the decentralized, spontaneous Free Market Civilization that I am working toward.

I understand most of your post except the last sentence in your 2nd paragraph so can you please put it simpler so I know what your trying to say?  No sarcasm here I just like to understand what somebody is talking about before I reply or think about it.
Okay and the third paragraph too, please?

[Raineyrocks]

I've always wondered why he got his needed organ so fast, I mean isn't there a list of people that need organs that they go by?

I don't like politicians BUT I'm not willing to assume that all of the doctors, nurses, administrators and facilitators of an organ transplant bumped people specifically to get him his organ. Or more specificially, if they DID, that the chances of getting that group of people happens frequently enough.

I recall (thought not specificially) the opposite cases happening where a 35 year old father is "denied" a kidney that goes to an 80-year old woman for instance. The truth is, organ transplants are a bit tougher than we really imagine. Say the donor dies, from the moment of death the body ceases to maintain that organ so there's literally a race against time from death to transplantation. Not only must the organ match (blood type, Rh factor, certain genetic markers, et cetera) but it also has to be close enough to the recipient to be transplanted before the organ fails. It's VERY possible that the Governer actually WAS the only matching candidate who needed THAT organ and could have been in the OR within the 3 hour timeframe before the organ died.

Now I will agree that being a governer probably enabled him to GET "the call" saying "We've got a liver, get to the OR" because he had an aide taking phone calls at 3:05 am, or that his ability to get to the OR in those three hours might have been enhanced by having helicopters at his disposal.

But on the flip side, let's say this was a self-made billionare rather than a politician, I'd have NO problem with him getting the organ since his hiring an aide and purchasing a helicopter gave him an advantage without harming others... It is (IMO) just a different arm of medical insurance. My ONLY conflict comes from the politician, since it's quite likely that the people he's using that helicopter to compete with were forced to fund that helicopter.

I'd much prefer if I could contract to sell my organs though. I think a LOT more people would be willing to offer organs upon their death if they were able to sell them, or if stem cell research or tissue cloning were permitted.

You do bring up some good points that make me feel better about the Casey donor , if it's like you say.

See though I don't think the really rich guy should get the organ just because he's got the money to pay a helicopter and stuff because it's not fair to poor people who want to live or have their kids live just as much, why should they be punished so to say just because they're not rich?

I totally agree with you that organ donations would sky rocked when $$ comes into the picture.  I just want to do it to hopefully help someone live a life that ended for me, I don't care about $$.

[Raineyrocks]

Though there is quite a bit of risk to the donor, a person can have I believe up to 3/4 of his liver removed to donate to someone and not only survive, but the liver will grow back.  It is the only body part that will regularly grow back.  It should be legal to sell your own liver.  That would be one hell of an act of civ dis if I had the guts to do it.   

I know, the liver is awesome, Milk Thistle helps to regenerate healthy liver growth too.

[Raineyrocks]

I am a organ donor, I seriously have my witness signatures and everything... however it is specified that I will only donate my brain, nothing else. So next time sometime in the future when some poor body has a damaged brain and I've probably crashed my Kawasaki ZX12R I can rest peacefully knowing I am doing all I can to save some unfortunates body.

But how can you donate your brain if you crashed your bike, wouldn't it be mush?

[Raineyrocks]

thats if your brain made it in good condition after a bike crash!  When ever I ride on a motorcycle, i think, "my poor mother, surely going over 100mph means the casket will be closed!"


What bugs the hell out of me with organ donating is, (i am an organ donor) is everyone gets paid for my my bits and pieces except me (or my family), same with blood donations.  WHy cant I sell my blood, or my eyeballs when I am done with them?  Or a kidney, I have two of them.  Everyone makes a profit off me.  I know someone who works for a blood center, she was paid about 15 bucks an hour, plus benefits, not too bad for only taking a crash course in poking people in the arms, and the blood center sold the pints of blood for $1200 a piece to the hospitals.  WTF, all i get is a few cookies and a glass of OJ. 

I am on the bone marrow list, because my employer at the time granted 8 weeks paid sick time if one of us was picked to donate. 

The system now SUCKS..  But, i always think, if i needed an organ, or some bone marrow because I am sick, I would like to hope someone would donate to me, I would like to see them get compensated. 

To toss a wrench in it, what about women donating eggs?  its 5-10K per donation.  I would love to do it, but I cant seem to stick myself in the ass with a needle..  I always think, would if I cant get pregnant, or have a child of my own, I would be praying for someone to help me out.  Anyone want to stick me for a  grand? 

I see what your saying, it doesn't seem right.  I feel like you do about if me and the kids needed an organ, oh yeah and Rick, that someone would donate too.

I'll stick you for a grand, we'll split it, we won't split your cheeks just the $$.   I give myself B12 injections once a week in my butt because I'm anemic. 

The only thing that bugs me about egg donating is that really that baby would have my dna and it would bother me, wondering what is going on with the baby, will he/she have a nice life, stuff like that.  There are so many kids/babies that need a good home and need to be adopted.  I know I have 5 kids but a lot of them were not planned and I didn't have the feelings that I do now about adoption.

That's just my opinion.  I was really close to carrying a baby for my best friend one time because she has a lot of health problems but she also is lucky enough to have one child so I kind of left it like that in my head.

[Raineyrocks]

organ donation should be like everything else in a free thinking freedom lover. It should be a personal decision.

i choose not to donate any part of my sacred body. I choose not to accept anyone elses blood but my own. and I choose not to have any type of "life saving" resusitation.

although the idea of organ doning and transplants may have came about from caring individuals, the "organ donor" system is now rampant with corruption. And just look what they are doing in china by harvesting organs from non-consenting inmates... and yes the rich and famous get preferential treatment...and remember most often the human body will reject someone elses organ and most often the person will have to take immune supressing drugs.

as always this is one of my beliefs that were are stepping over the line and screwing with the natural laws of nature..same as I despise human and animal cloning...and drastic plant cloning (ie  splicing fish tissue into tomato plants in hopes that the tomato can withstand colder temps). this kind of shit would never happen in nature.

we will (and have) been paying the price for messing with these laws.

I totally agree that it should be a personal decision and don't look at non-donors any differently than donors.

  I do think it has it's degree of corruption too.  I appreciate the natural law part too.  I felt just like you until I had kids and it made me wonder if they ever needed an organ to live my old beliefs would fly out of the window and I would just want them to live so bad  and then I thought about other people that might feel like me about their kids needing an organ and I thought it wouldn't be fair for me to take without giving back in one way or another.

[kola]

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/26/man-with-suicide-victim-s-heart-takes-own-life.aspx?source=nl

Man With Suicide Victim's Heart Takes Own Life

[srqrebel]

...I don't want a rich person getting my organs unless it's his turn on the number sheet.  Plus I wonder if doctors would work as hard as they could to keep me alive, especially if there's some rich guy/girl waiting for an organ.

Just wanted to point out that the real evil here is political manipulation, which amounts to legitimized fraud.

In a world where there is no "government" tampering with the economy, hence no more colossal parasitic burden on productive businesspeople, wealth would increasingly trend toward those who earn it through outstanding efforts at creating and marketing genuine values for others. Likewise, in such a world, those who are chonically poor would be those who do not make good on their personal responsibility to cultivate competency at creating and marketing values for others.

It would only be fair, IMO, for those noble individuals who provide the rest of us with the greatest values, to be rewarded with priority when it comes to limited lifesaving resources. That is the justice inherent in the decentralized, spontaneous Free Market Civilization that I am working toward.

I understand most of your post except the last sentence in your 2nd paragraph so can you please put it simpler so I know what your trying to say?  No sarcasm here I just like to understand what somebody is talking about before I reply or think about it.
Okay and the third paragraph too, please?

Sure, no problem.

Bear with me, this is a lengthy post

There is nothing nobler than to identify, create, mass produce, and mass market solutions to life's problems -- which is precisely what every successful technological innovation is. This is what all the great innovators throughout history have done. They are by far the most noble -- in fact, heroic -- among us, for they are the ones exerting all the hard mental effort and discipline to take great ideas and transform them into mass marketed products and services that benefit their fellow humans immensely.

Note that there is a distinct difference between value creation and value production: Value creation involves innovation; value production merely copies what others have created. For example, Thomas Alva Edison created the incandescent light bulb; the folks who work at the factories of Sylvania and GE for a weekly paycheck merely produce what Edison created long ago. (By the way, TAE was my greatest childhood hero, and I continue to this day to hold him in high esteem for the tremendous improvements to our daily lives that he passed along to us. One small example: Imagine driving a car at night with only gas lanterns for headlights.)

While most people are content to hold low-effort jobs merely producing the high-effort creations of others, the innovators are the ones who consistently drive up the quality of life for everyone. In fact, the vast majority of individuals consume those goods and services without ever giving thought to the immense amount of sustained effort and discipline that went into creating those products and services in the first place, so they can be made available to them. That is NOT a fault, by the way: It is only natural to take these things for granted.

Mere producers are far nobler than someone who never aspires to anything at all -- say a hermit in the woods. While the hermit cannot be faulted, either -- as long as he harms no one -- there is nothing noble or heroic about him. He makes no effort to rise above just his very basic requirements, let alone reach for his highest potential as a human being. Not a fault, but nothing commendable, either. On the other hand, the most heroic (and rarest!) of all individuals are those who are not content to merely produce, but instead put forth the tremendous effort required to reach their absolute highest potentials and be the innovators, or creators, of competitive, marketable values for others to enjoy.

Since the creators' high-effort creations are so routinely taken for granted by the general populace, despite the far greater discipline and effort that those individuals exert, it is only fair that they become wealthy from the marketing of their creations, in direct proportion to the degree of value that they respectively create. It is their just reward, for being among those rarest and most valuable human beings who are willing to discipline themselves to reach for their highest potential, thereby improving the quality of life for all of us.

Enter the AMOG, with its immense burden of taxes extortion and regulatory hurdles, and its parasitic guns-and-fists enforcers. Here in our part of the world, and presumably across the globe, the AMOG is now plundering the heroic creator/entrepreneurs so excessively that there remains only a trace of incentive for them to 'reach for the stars' -- knowing the 'stars' will in turn be plucked from their hands by parasitic bullies who not only do not create nor produce anything of value -- they demonstrate contempt for those who do. In Atlas Shrugged, the creators "shrugged" (withdrew their beneficial values from the rest of the world) by retreating to a safe location. In the real world, no such safe location exists -- the "Atlases" of the world are compelled to choose between withdrawing their beneficial -- in fact indispensable -- influence entirely, or working forever as slaves to parasites who live off them while vilifying them.

For illustration, lets contrast the two "systems":

The AMOG increasingly penalizes the most heroic among us, thereby destroying the incentive to create (by default). The more you reach for your highest potential, the more the AMOG and their puppet MSM plunder and vilify you (using such derogatory terms as "robber baron", "filthy rich", "greedy businessman", etc.). The more you live as a monk or a hermit, the more they leave you alone.

Free Market Civilization, on the other hand, consistently increases the incentive to create. The more you reach for your highest potential, the more the market rewards you with wealth and esteem. The more one lives as a monk or a hermit, the more one gets left in the dust as the insignificant being one has chosen to be. Now that is justice.

Ironically, the terms "robber baron", "filthy rich", and "greedy businessman" are quite fitting for most of those who prosper in today's AMOG-controlled anti-civilization. In order to gain an advantage in a world dominated by filthy parasites, one must increasingly utilize the strong arm of the AMOG to bully and subdue one's competition. It is the aggression-based AMOG that enables greedy dog-eat-dog behavior -- NOT peaceful, competent capitalism.

...Likewise, in such a world, those who are chonically poor would be those who do not make good on their personal responsibility to cultivate competency at creating and marketing values for others.

Just want to point out that the personal responsibility I was referring to, is the responsibility to oneself to look out for one's own longterm well-being. If one does not make good on that responsibility, whether by choice or by default, it is absolutely nobody else's business.

In the ideal world, namely (AMOG-free) Free Market Civilization, the most rational approach to ensuring one's longterm well-being is to reach for one's highest potential, as a competent value creator. That requires consistent high-effort cultivation of discipline, thought, and practical skills.

It would only be fair, IMO, for those noble individuals who provide the rest of us with the greatest values, to be rewarded with priority when it comes to limited lifesaving resources. That is the justice inherent in the decentralized, spontaneous Free Market Civilization that I am working toward.

The inherent justice I speak of, is the fact that in an AMOG-free world, those who reach for their highest potential as human beings, by exerting the immense discipline and effort required to create and bring to market values that raise the quality of life for their peers, would thereby have the financial means to avail themselves of limited lifesaving resources. Those who do not care to reach for their highest potential, exercise that indifference at the ultimate risk of not being able to afford those limited resources when -- and if -- they need them.

[J’raxis 270145]

I am a organ donor, I seriously have my witness signatures and everything... however it is specified that I will only donate my brain, nothing else. So next time sometime in the future when some poor body has a damaged brain and I've probably crashed my Kawasaki ZX12R I can rest peacefully knowing I am doing all I can to save some unfortunates body.

That's cheating. That wouldn't be a brain transplant for them, it's a body transplant for you.

I thought that was the whole point

Personally, I can see no justified argument for not donating organs.

How about this one: My organs are my property, therefore I need no justification for how I choose to dispose of them.

I am most definitely NOT responsible to others for their well-being. I am responsible to myself for my own well-being. My responsibility to others is to not cause them harm. What I withhold from them is absolutely none of their business, as long as I have made no voluntary agreement to the contrary.

Much like collectivist thinking, the belief that ex nihilo positive obligations exist seems to be another one of those traps everyone falls into from time to time.

[Caleb]

I count myself among those who believe that ex nihilo positive obligations are the foundation for any intelligible morality. I think that people shy away from viewing such obligations as moral requirements because of the mistaken notion that there ought to be violent enforcement of moral precepts.