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Author Topic:   'Whites Only' Organ Donation

GaryD posted 07-07-99 09:25 AM ET
The UK health secretary launches an investigation after a hospital accepted organs on the condition they would be given only to a white patient.
Discuss ?
Trappist posted 07-07-99 11:39 AM ET
They certainly shouldn't have refused the organ. However it should then have been used on the person with greatest need, regardless of the conditions (which would not be binding in law). That may have been the case here, of course.
The feelings of bigots are irrelevant, and disappointment is all they deserve.
MikeH II posted 07-07-99 11:40 AM ET
Should kill more bigots and use their organs for transplants.
onepaul posted 07-07-99 12:08 PM ET
Not to defend anyone, but most of the time organs from a white person can only by donated to a white person, and same thing goes for other races as well. It's almost like Apple/PC compatibility (sic?)
GaryD posted 07-07-99 12:34 PM ET
Oh. The serious answers seem to coincide with my own. What a pity.
As I see it, the authorities have two options.
Either the distaste of agreeing to the request is so great that they refuse any organ offered on these terms, with the corresponding death of patients that could have been saved, in the hope that long term it will hasten a change in social attitude.
Or they can accept that the saving of life is more important, and accept the terms. The hope being that in long term, a change in social attitude will make such a request unthinkable anyway.
Or to put it another way, save a patients life, or let them die. No choice at all really.
What is ironic, as onepaul points out, the need to match tissue type means that non-white patients are unlikely to be affected by the conditions anyway, but the chance of turning down the offer would put white folk at risk. Probably not the outcome the donors intended.
Its a sad world, sometimes.
(Wouldn't there be some sort of legal ban on agreeing to the terms of a deal, and then ignoring them ?)
Spoe posted 07-07-99 01:43 PM ET
Unless the terms of the deal were illegal to begin with, similar to the clauses you see in many land deeds in the American south prohibiting the resale of the land to blacks, jews, etc. Up to, IIRC, the 50s, these were legal. Now they are not. They still exist in the deed, but have been ruled null.
Dreadnought posted 07-07-99 03:46 PM ET
A bit off the subject but, onepaul, what does sic mean? aughhhhhh
Spoe posted 07-07-99 05:09 PM ET
When you put 'sic' after a word or sentence(usually in a quote), it means that you know that there is something wrong with it. For example "I beleive(sic) frogs are green.". The 'sic' means that you know that 'believe' is spelled incorrectly.
ZyXEL posted 07-08-99 03:48 AM ET
That's the words, MikeHII
I think that we are all red and bloody under the skin.
Tolls posted 07-08-99 05:47 AM ET
The law's rather hazy about all this, and it seems that there are going to be minor changes to close this loophole...basically nobody thought anyone could put conditions on the donation of organs, and it's quite likely that if the hospital had trasplanted the kidney into a non-white individual and the family took it to court they'd have been told to sod off by the Judge.
The whole way organ donations are made are being looked at in any case...so this'll be cleared up at the same time.
GaryD posted 07-08-99 06:10 AM ET
Well I guess it'd take a brave judge to order it's removal again but seriously I guess the problem is being sued/arrested/whatever.
As an interesting aside it now transpires that a totally different hospital was offered organs with the proviso that they only went to a Muslim. That hospital made the decision to say "No thanks.".
Someone was on the radio this morning to say that this problem of applying conditions is not new. The most common is the desire for a relative/friend to be the recipient. Then originally there were conditions to ensure a different gender didn't get the organ. Then problems between protestants and catholics. So he said it's all been seen (and solved) before.
Anyway, as devil's advocate, whatever happened to being able to give that which is in your possession to whoever you decide to, without state interference ?
Spoe posted 07-08-99 01:13 PM ET
"Anyway, as devil's advocate, whatever happened to being able to give that which is in your possession to whoever you decide to, without state interference?"
When you are giving it to a program that is (most likely) administered by the government? Seems to me in that situation the government can make the rules on whether it will accept donations with such provisions attached.
GaryD posted 07-08-99 01:40 PM ET
Ah, they are the intermediary. You are giving it to the recipient not them.
Spoe posted 07-08-99 01:50 PM ET
Ok. They are the delivery service. Certainly FedEx would be within their rights to refuse to deliver a package if the sender specified only a white could sign for it.
Besides, there is ample precedent for this. The aforementioned clauses in deeds, for example.
Noisy posted 07-08-99 04:37 PM ET
[rant]
Whoa, wait a minute here! What planet are you guys on? It seems like Big Brother is alive and well and living in the forums.
It seems that what the BMA are saying here is that "After you die, your body belongs to us to use as we see fit." What brand of ethics supports this? Yang might get away with this, but anyone with any smidgin of philosophical background should be able to blow this out of the water without any problem at all. I only wish I had that background, but I do know that I am entitled to my rights and beliefs: if anyone wants to thumb their nose at those beliefs after I have gone, and I don't have the ability to argue my case, then who is in the wrong?
This makes me really angry, because a person puts a lot of investment into a body - nutrition, healthcare, exercise, clothing/housing - and then they can't decide what is done with it when it gets worn out or damaged beyond repair. I always knew altruism was overrated.
[/rant]
BMA = British Medical Association (UK national health professionals "union")
http://web.bma.org.uk/homepage.nsf
Story at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
At the Telegraph's Feedback page there is a vote on the issue, which is currently running at 50:50.
Noisy
Tolls posted 07-09-99 04:25 AM ET
Not when it comes to participating in the organ donation service...you sign up for that with no ties...the NHS in not there to pander to people's prejudices.
If you want to donate it to a private hospital with these conditions attached then fine, but that hospital had better realise there will be serious repercussions if that ever got out.
GaryD posted 07-09-99 06:04 AM ET
Welcome to the fray Noisy. give it some stick mate
Tolls: "you sign up for that with no ties" Ah but this is the crux of the matter. These donors were offering with ties. Are they not morally allowed to do so ? If not, why not, and does this go so far as to prevent them insisting that their (other) dying relative is to be the recipient ?
GaryD posted 07-09-99 06:06 AM ET
Oh almost forgot. Spoe: I don't think the donor was concerned who signed for the kidney/heart/whatever. It was who got it in the end. Who's name was on the package.
Tolls posted 07-09-99 09:46 AM ET
If there was a match with a needy relative then most doctors go with that since there's less chance of rejection anyway...
The problem here is that the law is slightly hazy...the intention, though, was not for people to stick conditions on their organ donations, which is why the committee looking into this whole organ donor thing will probably deal with this aspect as well.
Spoe posted 07-09-99 02:32 PM ET
GaryD:
"I don't think the donor was concerned who signed for the kidney/heart/whatever. It was who got it in the end."
Ok, then, "they can only deliver it if the addressee is white, if they aren't deliver it to the next white person you see". Another slightly broken analogy, but along similar line.
Noisy:
"It seems that what the BMA are saying here is that 'After you die, your body belongs to us to use as we see fit.'"
From what I can see here, it isn't. It's saying, "If you want to donate your organs you must realize you don't have any say about who receives them.".
It is a bit morally sticky: is it better to accept the organs and use them to help some, while running the risk of starting a wave of conditional donations, or stick to a straight 'greatest need and compatability' distribution system and risk losing a few organs? I'll vote for the latter.
Now I know we're bringing other things into here, but in the US you donate the organs to a member of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network which holds them for the public, the public then owns the organs[1]. Since, as I mentioned above, restrictions on who property can be sold to are legally null it doesn't matter if a family tries to place restrictions on a donation, the restriction is unenforcable. So it would be perfectly legal for a OPO to accept a donation with those restrictions and ignore those restrictions when finding a recipient.
Now obviously I am unfamiliar with British law, so I am unsure if the situation is similar there.
[1] "Human organs that are donated for transplantation are a public trust."(Federal Register Vol. 63, No. 63, Page 16298), which means that ownership is vested in the public at large not the people donating the organs.
Noisy posted 07-09-99 09:36 PM ET
Yo, Spoe:
Sorry, I jumped in with a lot of spleen to vent, so there's a bit of background missing from the story. My reaction was against a proposed change in the rules. Currently, in Britain, your organs can be donated if you carry an Organ Donor Card, or your family sanction it when you are on the verge of death. The proposed change is that organ donation is automatic - "presumed consent" - unless you express a wish against it.
I've just had a look at the BMA press release, and it seems that there are just as wide a range of views amongst doctors as there are here: another case of the media jumping on the bandwagon to try to create some news.
My real concern is that personal views get overridden once you are dead. Is this right? Especially when the doctors have no way of finding out what your personal views are. Aren't people allowed to have their own opinion any more? Do they have to bow to the will of the state? "Into the recycling tanks with him!"
Britain is moving to be more and more secular (which I am in favour of, to a large extent), but there are still a whole bunch of people who are religious. I bet there are quite a few religions which would consider the transplantation of an organ into a non-believer as being something that would condemn the donor to Hell. So would a doctor who violated this principle be guilty of some form of religious discrimination?
From the little - and I admit it is a very small amount - that I have heard on the news, and read on the 'net, it sounds as though the people suffering most from a lack of donors are those ethnic groups which are not compatible with organs donated by "white" patients. If those groups knew that they could specify to help their own "communities" by the donation of their organs, then might they not be in a better position?
Seems as if there is a lot to think about.
Noisy
Spoe posted 07-10-99 09:55 AM ET
"The proposed change is that organ donation is automatic - 'presumed consent' - unless you express a wish against it."
That's a bit much. I'd be worried about the doctors deciding they need your organs more than they need you("Oh joy! You're a match for the PM and he needs a new heart. You're just a bum, so we'll just let you die so we can save him, eh?").
"My real concern is that personal views get overridden once you are dead."
Though it is possible to argue that if you don't want your organs harvested, you should have spoken up and said so before you die. Of course, even under the present system, I presume that there is nothing to prevent a family memeber speaking up against your wishes?
"I bet there are quite a few religions which would consider the transplantation of an organ into a non-believer as being something that would condemn the donor to Hell. So would a doctor who violated this principle be guilty of some form of religious discrimination?"
Depends on where you draw the line for religious rights. I could probably come up with an argument that this is akin to parents not taking their kids to the doctor due to religious belief and then the social workers step in and get a court order sending the kids to the doctor(basically under the point that you cannot use your religious beliefs to harm others) I'm not sure that it would be a good thing, but the argument could be made.
"If those groups knew that they could specify to help their own 'communities' by the donation of their organs, then might they not be in a better position?"
Obviously. But I think this a matter best settled by education, not by allowing racist or other prejudicial conditions on donations.
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Author	Topic: 'Whites Only' Organ Donation
GaryD	posted 07-07-99 09:25 AM ET The UK health secretary launches an investigation after a hospital accepted organs on the condition they would be given only to a white patient. Discuss ?
Trappist	posted 07-07-99 11:39 AM ET They certainly shouldn't have refused the organ. However it should then have been used on the person with greatest need, regardless of the conditions (which would not be binding in law). That may have been the case here, of course. The feelings of bigots are irrelevant, and disappointment is all they deserve.
MikeH II	posted 07-07-99 11:40 AM ET Should kill more bigots and use their organs for transplants.
onepaul	posted 07-07-99 12:08 PM ET Not to defend anyone, but most of the time organs from a white person can only by donated to a white person, and same thing goes for other races as well. It's almost like Apple/PC compatibility (sic?)
GaryD	posted 07-07-99 12:34 PM ET Oh. The serious answers seem to coincide with my own. What a pity. As I see it, the authorities have two options. Either the distaste of agreeing to the request is so great that they refuse any organ offered on these terms, with the corresponding death of patients that could have been saved, in the hope that long term it will hasten a change in social attitude. Or they can accept that the saving of life is more important, and accept the terms. The hope being that in long term, a change in social attitude will make such a request unthinkable anyway. Or to put it another way, save a patients life, or let them die. No choice at all really. What is ironic, as onepaul points out, the need to match tissue type means that non-white patients are unlikely to be affected by the conditions anyway, but the chance of turning down the offer would put white folk at risk. Probably not the outcome the donors intended. Its a sad world, sometimes. (Wouldn't there be some sort of legal ban on agreeing to the terms of a deal, and then ignoring them ?)
Spoe	posted 07-07-99 01:43 PM ET Unless the terms of the deal were illegal to begin with, similar to the clauses you see in many land deeds in the American south prohibiting the resale of the land to blacks, jews, etc. Up to, IIRC, the 50s, these were legal. Now they are not. They still exist in the deed, but have been ruled null.
Dreadnought	posted 07-07-99 03:46 PM ET A bit off the subject but, onepaul, what does sic mean? aughhhhhh
Spoe	posted 07-07-99 05:09 PM ET When you put 'sic' after a word or sentence(usually in a quote), it means that you know that there is something wrong with it. For example "I beleive(sic) frogs are green.". The 'sic' means that you know that 'believe' is spelled incorrectly.
ZyXEL	posted 07-08-99 03:48 AM ET That's the words, MikeHII I think that we are all red and bloody under the skin.
Tolls	posted 07-08-99 05:47 AM ET The law's rather hazy about all this, and it seems that there are going to be minor changes to close this loophole...basically nobody thought anyone could put conditions on the donation of organs, and it's quite likely that if the hospital had trasplanted the kidney into a non-white individual and the family took it to court they'd have been told to sod off by the Judge. The whole way organ donations are made are being looked at in any case...so this'll be cleared up at the same time.
GaryD	posted 07-08-99 06:10 AM ET Well I guess it'd take a brave judge to order it's removal again but seriously I guess the problem is being sued/arrested/whatever. As an interesting aside it now transpires that a totally different hospital was offered organs with the proviso that they only went to a Muslim. That hospital made the decision to say "No thanks.". Someone was on the radio this morning to say that this problem of applying conditions is not new. The most common is the desire for a relative/friend to be the recipient. Then originally there were conditions to ensure a different gender didn't get the organ. Then problems between protestants and catholics. So he said it's all been seen (and solved) before. Anyway, as devil's advocate, whatever happened to being able to give that which is in your possession to whoever you decide to, without state interference ?
Spoe	posted 07-08-99 01:13 PM ET "Anyway, as devil's advocate, whatever happened to being able to give that which is in your possession to whoever you decide to, without state interference?" When you are giving it to a program that is (most likely) administered by the government? Seems to me in that situation the government can make the rules on whether it will accept donations with such provisions attached.
GaryD	posted 07-08-99 01:40 PM ET Ah, they are the intermediary. You are giving it to the recipient not them.
Spoe	posted 07-08-99 01:50 PM ET Ok. They are the delivery service. Certainly FedEx would be within their rights to refuse to deliver a package if the sender specified only a white could sign for it. Besides, there is ample precedent for this. The aforementioned clauses in deeds, for example.
Noisy	posted 07-08-99 04:37 PM ET [rant] Whoa, wait a minute here! What planet are you guys on? It seems like Big Brother is alive and well and living in the forums. It seems that what the BMA are saying here is that "After you die, your body belongs to us to use as we see fit." What brand of ethics supports this? Yang might get away with this, but anyone with any smidgin of philosophical background should be able to blow this out of the water without any problem at all. I only wish I had that background, but I do know that I am entitled to my rights and beliefs: if anyone wants to thumb their nose at those beliefs after I have gone, and I don't have the ability to argue my case, then who is in the wrong? This makes me really angry, because a person puts a lot of investment into a body - nutrition, healthcare, exercise, clothing/housing - and then they can't decide what is done with it when it gets worn out or damaged beyond repair. I always knew altruism was overrated. [/rant] BMA = British Medical Association (UK national health professionals "union") http://web.bma.org.uk/homepage.nsf Story at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ At the Telegraph's Feedback page there is a vote on the issue, which is currently running at 50:50. Noisy
Tolls	posted 07-09-99 04:25 AM ET Not when it comes to participating in the organ donation service...you sign up for that with no ties...the NHS in not there to pander to people's prejudices. If you want to donate it to a private hospital with these conditions attached then fine, but that hospital had better realise there will be serious repercussions if that ever got out.
GaryD	posted 07-09-99 06:04 AM ET Welcome to the fray Noisy. give it some stick mate Tolls: "you sign up for that with no ties" Ah but this is the crux of the matter. These donors were offering with ties. Are they not morally allowed to do so ? If not, why not, and does this go so far as to prevent them insisting that their (other) dying relative is to be the recipient ?
GaryD	posted 07-09-99 06:06 AM ET Oh almost forgot. Spoe: I don't think the donor was concerned who signed for the kidney/heart/whatever. It was who got it in the end. Who's name was on the package.
Tolls	posted 07-09-99 09:46 AM ET If there was a match with a needy relative then most doctors go with that since there's less chance of rejection anyway... The problem here is that the law is slightly hazy...the intention, though, was not for people to stick conditions on their organ donations, which is why the committee looking into this whole organ donor thing will probably deal with this aspect as well.
Spoe	posted 07-09-99 02:32 PM ET GaryD: "I don't think the donor was concerned who signed for the kidney/heart/whatever. It was who got it in the end." Ok, then, "they can only deliver it if the addressee is white, if they aren't deliver it to the next white person you see". Another slightly broken analogy, but along similar line. Noisy: "It seems that what the BMA are saying here is that 'After you die, your body belongs to us to use as we see fit.'" From what I can see here, it isn't. It's saying, "If you want to donate your organs you must realize you don't have any say about who receives them.". It is a bit morally sticky: is it better to accept the organs and use them to help some, while running the risk of starting a wave of conditional donations, or stick to a straight 'greatest need and compatability' distribution system and risk losing a few organs? I'll vote for the latter. Now I know we're bringing other things into here, but in the US you donate the organs to a member of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network which holds them for the public, the public then owns the organs[1]. Since, as I mentioned above, restrictions on who property can be sold to are legally null it doesn't matter if a family tries to place restrictions on a donation, the restriction is unenforcable. So it would be perfectly legal for a OPO to accept a donation with those restrictions and ignore those restrictions when finding a recipient. Now obviously I am unfamiliar with British law, so I am unsure if the situation is similar there. [1] "Human organs that are donated for transplantation are a public trust."(Federal Register Vol. 63, No. 63, Page 16298), which means that ownership is vested in the public at large not the people donating the organs.
Noisy	posted 07-09-99 09:36 PM ET Yo, Spoe: Sorry, I jumped in with a lot of spleen to vent, so there's a bit of background missing from the story. My reaction was against a proposed change in the rules. Currently, in Britain, your organs can be donated if you carry an Organ Donor Card, or your family sanction it when you are on the verge of death. The proposed change is that organ donation is automatic - "presumed consent" - unless you express a wish against it. I've just had a look at the BMA press release, and it seems that there are just as wide a range of views amongst doctors as there are here: another case of the media jumping on the bandwagon to try to create some news. My real concern is that personal views get overridden once you are dead. Is this right? Especially when the doctors have no way of finding out what your personal views are. Aren't people allowed to have their own opinion any more? Do they have to bow to the will of the state? "Into the recycling tanks with him!" Britain is moving to be more and more secular (which I am in favour of, to a large extent), but there are still a whole bunch of people who are religious. I bet there are quite a few religions which would consider the transplantation of an organ into a non-believer as being something that would condemn the donor to Hell. So would a doctor who violated this principle be guilty of some form of religious discrimination? From the little - and I admit it is a very small amount - that I have heard on the news, and read on the 'net, it sounds as though the people suffering most from a lack of donors are those ethnic groups which are not compatible with organs donated by "white" patients. If those groups knew that they could specify to help their own "communities" by the donation of their organs, then might they not be in a better position? Seems as if there is a lot to think about. Noisy
Spoe	posted 07-10-99 09:55 AM ET "The proposed change is that organ donation is automatic - 'presumed consent' - unless you express a wish against it." That's a bit much. I'd be worried about the doctors deciding they need your organs more than they need you("Oh joy! You're a match for the PM and he needs a new heart. You're just a bum, so we'll just let you die so we can save him, eh?"). "My real concern is that personal views get overridden once you are dead." Though it is possible to argue that if you don't want your organs harvested, you should have spoken up and said so before you die. Of course, even under the present system, I presume that there is nothing to prevent a family memeber speaking up against your wishes? "I bet there are quite a few religions which would consider the transplantation of an organ into a non-believer as being something that would condemn the donor to Hell. So would a doctor who violated this principle be guilty of some form of religious discrimination?" Depends on where you draw the line for religious rights. I could probably come up with an argument that this is akin to parents not taking their kids to the doctor due to religious belief and then the social workers step in and get a court order sending the kids to the doctor(basically under the point that you cannot use your religious beliefs to harm others) I'm not sure that it would be a good thing, but the argument could be made. "If those groups knew that they could specify to help their own 'communities' by the donation of their organs, then might they not be in a better position?" Obviously. But I think this a matter best settled by education, not by allowing racist or other prejudicial conditions on donations.