Organ donation after death: thoughts and experiences?

Drew Young10 said:I’m reading through these posts and starting to think I’m the only one here who actually carries a donor card! Seriously, have some shame—all these excuses you guys make...👎

Just because someone hasn't signed up for a donor card doesn't mean they aren't a potential donor.

It’s funny how organ donation is still such a taboo subject here, yet people will spread every gruesome urban legend imaginable without a second thought.
We actually had a similar debate back at the Motel, where a conversation about such a noble concept spiraled into a massive argument.
Think about it for a second: what if one of those organs ends up saving my life or someone close to me? Why shouldn't MY organ be the one to save someone else?
Even if it's someone wealthy who manages to jump the waiting list, they'll still be saved by someone's gift.
And let's be clear—organs are harvested immediately once a person is declared clinically dead. So, all those whispered rumors about doctors just letting a poor soul die to get their parts? They simply don't hold water.
Do some incompetent doctors spread these myths? I don't know, but I wouldn't rule it out. I happened to witness how certain supposedly "skilled" physicians treated an AIDS patient who desperately needed urgent surgery, and honestly, there are definitely weeds among the flowers.
At the end of the day, donating is a truly noble gesture.

If an Autobus hits me, then take everything they can get. If I'm dead, I don't need a liver anymore.
But look, if that Autobus slams into me and I'm still breathing, and someone decides to rip my heart out just because I carry a donor card instead of using it to save my life... man.
And honestly, I don't care if this happens in 0.001% of cases or every other case.
I am not risking being left to die like some animal just because someone else needs my heart. My heart is doing just fine right where it is.

Look, if I'm stone-cold dead and there's zero chance of bringing me back, then sure, grab whatever can be used. Take my brain—maybe that'll actually save someone one day. It would be a shame to let it go to waste 😁. Cut my hair, sell it to some wig maker, and donate the cash to kids in Africa or a local dog shelter. I don't give a damn.

But I want them to do everything possible to save me first.
I won't have them letting me slip away just because I've got great kidneys.

Quick correction on a total misstatement here..

We don't actually take organs from dead people..

The term used for an organ donor is "cadaver" (kind of a slick Latin phrase, right?)..
And in real-world terms, that means someone who has been declared brain dead.
A person in that state can't survive on their own because the brain is effectively gone; it can't handle even the most basic life-sustaining functions..
That’s why the body is kept in a sort of artificial state—you know, hooked up to machines—just to keep everything functioning until the organs can be harvested..
As for how much humanity is actually involved in that process..
Well, that's a whole different conversation entirely..

You mean a cadaver???
A cadaver is just a corpse...

Anyone know how to sign up for donor week?
Back in the old days with the paper logs, we could just write down whatever we wanted to donate... but now that we're stuck with just these single cards, how do you even handle that?

The most important thing: Don't forget to die while you're still healthy 😉

stormylynx14 said:The most important thing: Don't forget to die while you're still healthy 😉

that just warms my heart...

Look here

I’ve actually been mulling over signing my organ donor card for quite a while now. In the meantime, I’ve already let my inner circle know that if I ever head off to those eternal hunting grounds, I'm more than happy to donate whatever can be put to good use.🙂

If anyone knows anything about the legal standing on this topic, please lay it out for me—or even just toss me a decent link... my own search came up pretty much empty. Honestly, doesn't matter if it's an American site or not. It would be ideal if someone actually had the full U.S. legal code regarding this specific issue (or at least a solid chunk of it). Also, if you can, please drop your thoughts in the poll comments. Thanks in advance for the help.

Human organ transplants?

I didn't vote for a reason; I just want to say this: This is going to quickly become one of the biggest and MOST HORRIFIC businesses in "Adamson's civilization."
I say this because certain groups already know all about the cases where they don't provide full assistance to a young person—instead, they just wait (sometimes even helping along) for that person to pass away, while somewhere else in the world, a group of surgeons is waiting to perform a transplant for a vital organ.

Or am I just wrong?
Maybe I'm just getting the urge to write a crime novel centered on the youth killing of the poor, just so the old and wealthy can keep living.

I’m mostly all for transplants, as long as the donor is doing it voluntarily. Personally, I’ve got three(!!!) kidneys. If someone in my family ever needed one, I’d totally give them a kidney.
In Germany, there are tons of people who volunteer to donate all their organs after they pass away. Anyone can sign a contract like that. Honestly, I think it's fine. Dead people don't need organs anyway.

Looking ahead, I have this vision where we'll eventually only be transplanting cloned organs. We're talking about organs grown in a lab from your own DNA rather than being taken from another person. That way, you basically wipe out the risk of your body rejecting the transplant.

I've merged this with the old thread, hopefully it helps you out a bit...

The donor cards you're talking about are pretty informal, and honestly, they aren't strictly necessary. Because of pushback from family and friends, doctors usually hesitate to act even when the permissive law allows them to (meaning, a donor is anyone who hasn't explicitly stated otherwise throughout their life). That’s why I still think those cards are useful—they might give a doctor the hint they need that the deceased would have wanted their body to help save someone else's life.

So, I’m just gonna chime in here and point out how there’s no such thing as an "anti-donor card"—you know, for people who flat-out refuse to donate their organs..
Like, if they existed, doctors would know instantly that we aren't dealing with a donor..

But the law doesn't account for that. Instead, you're supposed to write some formal statement or whatever and carry it around with you constantly like it's some kind of holy relic..
It's pretty obvious the law is totally unfair and completely ignores medical reality...
Because let's be real: once someone passes away, they aren't exactly "owning" their body parts anymore; those parts become subject to whatever the doctors decide is best at the time..

It would actually be fair if the law stated clearly—that no body parts can be taken without explicit permission from the individual (and something like a donor card would count as that permission)
Basically, if a person doesn't have a donor card, they shouldn't be allowed to touch them..

Just responding to source. Didn't feel like wading through all those replies.

Look, I'm telling you this from firsthand experience. I work very closely with organ procurement, and believe me! 🙂

Having a donor card? It doesn't mean a damn thing to anyone. When someone shows up at the ICU totally mangled—and I mean, we don't even know how much damage there is or if they have any chance—without approval from parents or close family nothing gets harvested from the deceased.

As for doctors making money off this stuff, there's no such thing as extra side cash. Per standard protocol, every successful transplant is compensated according to physician salary laws. Whether the transplant succeeds or fails, it’s logged, and those points turn into money. It’s just like getting overtime for Sunday shifts or holidays and stuff like that. The money goes to the people harvesting the organs and everyone involved—from the surgeon down to the anesthesiologist.

My personal take? Take whatever they can to help someone else keep living. What good is my stuff to me once I'm dead anyway?!

And one more thing—over here in the States, people don't really brag about having donor cards because weird things happen, if ya know what I mean.

In the States, celebrities and millionaires are seriously playing around with those donor cards. Lately, they’ve even been rolling out commercials where big-shot elites (mostly just old geezers) are out there peddling them...🤔

So, one of my cousin's close friends passed away recently. It was just one of those sudden, heavy things—she walked through her front door, complained about a headache, and then just lost consciousness and was gone.😢 It’s honestly heartbreaking because she was such a sweet little kid, only five years old. Now, her parents have decided to honor her memory by donating her organs to the hospital in Chicago.😢
Personally, I’m all for organ donation.👍

When someone gets rushed into the ICU in bad shape, I don't know how messed up they actually are, but without parental consent or some close relative signing off, nothing is being harvested from a victim of an accident.

That’s just not true.

A few years back, there was this segment on Latinica—you know, that investigative show—dealing with organ transplants...
They interviewed this woman from a major hospital in the US who claimed that without her permission, doctors stripped her 20-year-old son (who’d been in a horrific car wreck) of his organs—heart, lungs, kidneys, lenses... heck, even his reproductive organs!?
She wasn't given any medical records or anything to prove what happened... and ever since, she’s been fighting the hospital in court for years, but so far, she hasn't won a thing..

It looks like that specific case was a massive turning point—it seems like that’s when doctors started actually bothering relatives for permission before jumping in..

Organ transplantation from deceased donors is such a heavy ethical minefield, and it’s wild how nobody has brought this up until now..

We go out of our way to respect the dead, we hold funerals, we build monuments..
But then, on the flip side, we treat them like a convenient warehouse for spare parts..

Mark Lee65 said:- extracted organs (heart, lungs, kidneys, liver... and even the genitals!?)

Yeah, they definitely took "that" from him. 😁