A CHRISTIAN DUTY?
Tuesday, October 9, 2007 at 08:38AM 
So, do YOU think that organ-donation is a "Christian duty"?
The Church of England has declared this to be the case, in keeping with giving oneself and one's possessions freely. Body parts should not be mistaken for the person themselves, and the best way to treat them reverently is to use them to heal others, the Church said. It was taking part in a House of Lords consultation on whether there should be an EU-wide position on organ donation. The Church said it would welcome the creation of a European donor pool.
Sorry, I couldn't disagree more and I regret that once again the Church of England is plunging into the world of politics. Whether one chooses to donate an organ or not is surely a matter of personal choice which carries no religious compulsion? I can't find any Biblical command which suggests what the Church of England claims. I have no desire to donate any organs and even if I did, the fact that the morally decayed Church of England now endorses it - (and just stops short of making it a compulsory act for its followers) - would turn me off the idea. If people want to donate organs - that's fine, good for them. But I don't - and I know that there are many out there who think like me. The health fascists want to make organ donation an opt-out matter - which is profoundly wrong in my view. Why should the STATE be given the right to harvest a persons organs as it sees fit unless there is completed administration to the contrary? The State should keep away from this, and so should the Church. We must have the freedom to make our own individual determination on this without being bullied by politicians or clerics.
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Reader Comments (26)
Why should the STATE be given the right to harvest a persons organs as it sees fit unless there is completed administration to the contrary?
To help relieve the suffering of those on waiting lists for kidneys and other organs?
As an atheist, I thought christainity was supposed to be about charity and helping your neighbour. I cannot understand the problem with an opt-out law, which gives anyone who objects to this an, er, opt-out. It would only be state compulsion if no opt-out existed.
Peter
It has the right of the state to your organs as the default position with your own choice as an option that needs to be exercised.
This is a classic case where there is a state solution, a voluntary solution and a market solution.
The current voluntary solution does not produce enough organs. The state solution is an unacceptable nationalisation of our bodies.
Why not a market solution? Let hospitals pay people to sign up for donations and give those that do first call on transplants if they need them.
Hmmmmmmmmmm, yummy !
That Chinese takeaway looks good. Chop-sticks included, I see ?
H94
Why not a market for live donors? You know, adverts in the paper along the lines of: "Solve your debt problems! Top prices paid for healthy kidneys!"
Surely that is the classic free-market solution here?
Peter
It would be as easy to parody your position by suggesting the nationalisation of our organs while still living. After all if Socialism means anything why should one person be allowed to selfishly keep their two kidneys while others are left without.
Now that we have both enjoyed our bit of hyperbole why not discuss the merits of the issue.
So we would have to rely on the indefatigable and infalible state to keep a permanent, always accessible record of our wishes.
Of course, in the event of the state's infallible record-keeping computer going down (unheard of, eh?), or in the event of a junior bureaucrat making a typing error (unheard of, eh?) the presumption would be for donation.
Thus the state overrides the lifelong beliefs of some of its citizens - the people to whom it should be servant, not master.
I don't understand people who don't carry donor cards. I have one, the paramour has one. A very good friend of mine had a heart transplant a number of years ago and thanks to an organ donor has gone on to live a long and rich life. If something happens to me and there is no hope of my life continuing I want my organs to be harvested, I hope my organs can help ease the suffering of as many families as possible. Let them take what they like, I won't be needing them.
I wholeheartedly agree with fatmammycat
The church plunges into the world of politics on a near regular basis and sometimes you do agree with it!
Nevertheless i carry a donor card and dont need the church or anyone to tell me that this is the human thing to do.
"Why not a market for live donors?"
I realise that you are probably being facetious but that is a very good idea which would save countless lives and solve the shortages of anything which can be given by live donors.
Ross
This market already exists in some countries.
There were always already enough organs in every church I visited.
Wonder who donated them?
Peter, most countries where it occurs it is a black market without any legal protections. The only country with a legal organ market is Iran where according to the Economist:
"The way to encourage this is to legalise the sale of kidneys. That's what Iran has done. An officially approved patients' organisation oversees the transactions. Donors get $2,000-4,000. The waiting list has been eliminated."
Ross
Why stop at kidneys?
What's wrong with eyes, or even hearts and lungs. If I freely choose to sell any of these in a free market transaction in return for a sum I will leave to posterity, surely that's my business and not the state's? Why the need for regulation?
"Why stop at kidneys?
What's wrong with eyes, or even hearts and lungs. If I freely choose to sell any of these in a free market transaction in return for a sum I will leave to posterity, surely that's my business and not the state's? Why the need for regulation?"
Why indeed! Well said.
Henry,
"It has the right of the state to your organs as the default position with your own choice as an option that needs to be exercised."
No, that is the position now. The majority who wish to donate have their wishes denied because of the requirement to have a donor card.
"The state solution is an unacceptable nationalisation of our bodies."
The triumph of ideology over reason and charity. (And yet the state may commandeer a woman's living body to gestate new citizen units and that is apparently fine.)
''(The triumph of ideology over reason and charity. (And yet the state may commandeer a woman's living body to gestate new citizen units and that is apparently fine.)''
It's a minefield, an area where the 'sin' of 'moralising' comes in. But these are issues where people will moralise. Whether IVF, abortion and its limits and poineer medicine, such as nerve cells which Bush came out against. The problem is where does it stop, and what constitutes consent. Is consent to abort really consent if it is done under duress? Or if one person does it on behalf of another? Is it really possible to know what someone would want if they are dead or cannot speak?
We live in a secular time, when the influence of the Church is minimal, confined to the individual. But the COE has spoken out on this issue, in a moral and humanely beneficial way. That doesn't mean I agree with it, just that at least they are trying to give leadership in an increasingly Godless and moral-less world. I applaud their efforts at least.
Frank
The majority who wish to donate have their wishes denied because of the requirement to have a donor card.
I have a donor card. They are freely available in every pharmacy and given out in shopping centres on a regular basis by Irish Kidney Association. If there is a problem with the distribution of cards where you come from then that is a great shame. But the answer is to improve the distribution of cards rather than to make organs state property.
Or is your point that people just don't bother picking up the cards but really are willing to donate? That is an unacceptable assumption for the state to make in an individual case. It is not entitled to make that decision because it is not the default owner of your organs. You are.
It is pointless to introduce abortion into the debate (not tat you could help yourself) because the question there is the balance of rights between the mother and the baby in her womb.
In the case of donation there can be no dispute about your ownership of your own organs.
Charity, which you mention, is the basis for donation. But if that is not sufficient then commerce rather than state compulsion is the best and way forward.
Do those who support an opt-out organ donation scheme support an opt-out estate donation scheme i.e. the NHS can take all your stuff when you die unless you opt-out?
Henry,
"Or is your point that people just don't bother picking up the cards but really are willing to donate?"
Yes. This is a verifiable fact.
" It is not entitled to make that decision because it is not the default owner of your organs. You are."
And yet you allow the state to decide that someone really didn't want to donate their organs to a dying child, even when they probably did.
"It is pointless to introduce abortion into the debate (not tat you could help yourself) because the question there is the balance of rights between the mother and the baby in her womb."
While a born person in need of a kidney has no rights to balance?
You argue that a "baby" that thinks nothing, wants nothing, feels nothing has more rights to 'balance' than a walking talking child who needs a kidney and can even tell you so.
Similarly a walking talking woman has less rights to 'balance' than the same woman has when she is dead.
CL,
"Do those who support an opt-out organ donation scheme support an opt-out estate donation scheme i.e. the NHS can take all your stuff when you die unless you opt-out?"
No, because there is no reason to suppose that most people want to leave all their property to the NHS.
The point is that under an opt-in or opt-out scheme, somebody's going to have to indicate a choice and those who don't are going to lose out.
Given that most people do want to donate organs if asked, and further given that other people will actually die if those wishes are not respected, an opt-out scheme makes most sense.
That means a minority of people have to get off their ass and opt-out, and if they really object that strongly, they will. Plus, if they don't, it's not like somebody died, is it?
Frank
And yet you allow the state to decide that someone really didn't want to donate their organs to a dying child, even when they probably did.
A clear case for incentives. The problem with the state assuming consent is that it doesn't have the right to do so in an individual case even if it would be usually correct. The person who, and you and I may think them wrong, doesn't want to donate can't be denied their rights.
If we agree that the problem is that not enough of the people who would donate take up the cards then even a minor incentive may be enough to increase uptake sufficiently to cover the demand.
Why not number the cards and have a reasonable prize fund?
We have seen the popularity of lotteries.
The strongest argument against state ownership with an opt-out is that people who don't want to donate would have good reason to fear the kind of medical treatment they would get from a disapproving state system.
It is not god enough to make the case by simply holding up sick children and insisting the state has the only solution. Incentives can solve the problem without damaging liberty.
Henry,
I don't accept the premise that opt-out implies state ownership any more than opt-in does. Neither system implies state ownership in my view. Either way, the state is making a default assumption about people's wishes. The current situation simply means that it gets it wrong more often That means that more people's rights are denied and it also means that people die. I don't think the incentive idea is unreasonable but it doesn't solve the question of what the default presumption should be.
On the question of ownership, if I book a flight with Aer Lingus I currently have to tick a box in order to request getting emails about their special offers. They could change that system so that I had to untick a box and it still wouldn't mean that they owned my email address or somehow denied my liberty.
The point you make about non-donors receiving worse medical treatment, if true would apply to any donor system including the one you propose. One can always calculate who isn't a donor given the list of donors. If this is a problem then the solution would be anonymisation and strict security over the donor records. Incentives etc wouldn't solve it.
Frank
Incentives would solve it for two reasons. There would be no moral assumptions to be made about donors and non-doners. Incentives base the entire process on a perception of self-interrest.
With incentives the opt-out would not be something one had to act to do. With an incentive system one would still have to opt-in but enough people would do so to solve the problem.
I would not exercise an opt-out if it existed because I don't feel strongly enough about it but many would and in a system where health care is rationed by the state I'm certain they would face discrimination.
As will smokers the obese and the elderly as costs soar.
P.S. My email address belongs to google I assume. I never read the terms and condition but I'm confident that having paid nothing for it I do not have ownership of it.
Henry,
There would be no moral assumptions to be made about donors and non-doners. Incentives base the entire process on a perception of self-interrest.
I don't see how that works.
'So, Mr X I see that even though we now offer £100 to those who take a donor card, you still won't donate a kidney! What kind of monster are you!'
It could even make it worse perhaps, as to pay incentives you might have to use a bank account or cash a cheque. So now even bank staff could figure out you're not a donor if they have a mind to.
Again I think this must apply in all systems and the solution would be to make donors as anonymous as possible.
'So, Mr X I see that even though we now offer £100 to those who take a donor card, you still won't donate a kidney! What kind of monster are you!'
I don't agree. She hasn't done anything. But if she had a card refusing to donate it would be far worse. Even I would have a poor opinion of such people and I recognise their rights on the issue.
How much worse would they look to somebody who works in the health service and has no grasp of the concept of liberty.