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What are your thoughts about directed organ donation?

nonothing

Well-known member
Critically ill infants Kaylee Wallace and Lillian O'Connor have been linked by the possibility that the former might save the latter's life. Kaylee has a congenital disease and her parents have expressed the desire that, if she dies, her heart should be transplanted into Lillian. However, this has raised numerous ethical concerns in the medical community as, typically, organ donations are done anonymously.

What do you think about directed organ donation? Should donors have the right to decide who receives their organs after death? Does this create the possibility for abuse, as organs could be distributed based on religion or race, or even sold for profit? Is a 'lottery' the only truly fair way to distribute organs?


I will post the story so some of you will that do not live in canada can read...It is really sad to watch here.Either one will pass or even both.truely a sad story ..
 

nonothing

Well-known member
TORONTO - The tragic case of two sick babies in Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children is raising unsettling questions about medical and journalistic ethics.


Kaylee Wallace, seemingly dying of a congenital disease and Lillian O'Connor, whose heart cannot supply her tiny body with the oxygen it needs, were linked by the possibility that the former might save the latter's life.


The saga was being played out in real time on TV networks, news websites and in the pages of newspapers, with the names of all the players attached. The very public nature of the case concerns many medical ethicists who feel a deep sense of unease as they watch it unfold.


"These are not the kinds of decisions that have to be taken in the newspapers," says Trudo Lemmens, a professor of health law and bioethics at the University of Toronto.


"I guess one of the things you could ask is: Is having this media frenzy around this (case), is it a sufficient respect for that baby's life and death?" wonders ethicist Margaret Somerville.


Somerville, the director of McGill University's Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, was speaking of baby Kaylee, who was born with Joubert syndrome, a malformation of the brain and brain stem.


It was believed the severity of the condition would prevent her from breathing without a respirator when she sleeps. Her parents, Jason Wallace and Crystal Vitelli, agreed to have her taken off the breathing machine on Tuesday with the expectation that she would die and her organs would be donated to other infants in need.


But Kaylee confounded doctors' predictions by continuing to breathe after being removed from her ventilator. Hospital officials said Wednesday that Kaylee is no longer considered a potential donor.


Typically the names of transplant patients - any patients - aren't revealed, though occasionally desperate parents or adults in need of a transplant will go public with a plea for a donor organ. When organs from a person who died do become available, however, the public generally would not learn the name of the donor.


In this case, the names of the babies, their parents and the medical conditions each is suffering are in the public domain. Each new development tops newscasts as those watching wait to see if Kaylee will die and if Lillian will get a new heart from Kaylee or some other donor.


Lemmens and others following the case are sympathetic to the wishes of Kaylee's parents, who have said that if their daughter is going to die that they would like to help another child to live.


But there is concern that the public should understand that Kaylee's right to live must be respected and that she is entitled to the best possible care while she is alive. No one has suggested she is getting anything but that at the Hospital for Sick Children, a world-class facility.


Another aspect of this case that is disturbing ethicists is the fact that Wallace and Vitelli have expressed the desire that Kaylee's heart should go to Lillian O'Connor, who suffers from truncus arteriosus, a condition which robs her heart of the ability to adequately oxygenate her blood.


In Canada, and many parts of the world, survivors of a person who has died do not have the right to say who should get organs from the deceased.


If a living person decides he or she wants to donate a kidney or a piece of their liver, they can specify to whom the organ will be given. An adult brother can give a kidney to an ailing sister. Or a parent can contribute a lobe of his or her liver for a child.


But organs from dead donors go into a pool that is administered by experts who assess who gets what and when. Those decisions are based solely on need and the chances that the transplant will be successful in the designated recipient, ethicists familiar with the system explain.


"Currently - certainly in Ontario - they don't permit directing of organs after death. Because that would mean that they're being directed to somebody who may not be the one who needs them the most," says Linda Wright, director of bioethics for the transplant program at the University Health Network in Toronto.

The system is specifically designed to rule out the possibility that factors like race, gender, religion, socio-economic status or education level would play a role in the distribution of scarce organs, Wright and others explain.

"We're not going to say 'The life of a person from this section of society is more valuable than a person from another section of society. That's why we use medical criteria," she says. "It's going to be everyone has the same shot at it, providing they meet the requirements."

Directed organ donation would open up the system to exploitation, Lemmens says.

"One of the concerns would certainly be that it leads to the kind of consumer-driven, marketing-driven, sympathy-evoking reality TV (scenarios) ... where people will start kind of evoking: 'Well, look at how cute this baby is,"' he says.

"Would we be not starting to invite people from all across Canada to start publishing the picture of their baby and saying: 'Well, our baby is in need of this heart as well?' I think that would actually be a horrible situation."

Deliberating in public about who should get donor organs adds to the horrible stress that is already on people who draw up the priority lists for transplantation, Lemmens says.

The medical staff involved in these cases are already confronted with "terrible choices of priority setting and deciding whether a baby is an appropriate receiver or an appropriate donor," he says.

"And when you add on to that the kind of public pressure that could exist if people say: 'How come they haven't given it to Baby X?' and '(How come) the heart has gone to a baby in another city that we don't know about?"'
 

Steve

Well-known member
I wouldn't want the organs to go to a person in prison as some have, or to a drug user who blew his/her organs and now waits in line with those who were just unlucky..

.... I guess when faced with the decision most would donate to a person they knew before they would to an unnamed person which would mean more organs would be donated.. and if it helped the family deal with the grief and allow the organ to be used, then good will come out of it..

but the implications are that someone could buy their way to the top of the list.

I saw this story on the local news.. and it is a sad story,.. did the transfer happen?
 

nonothing

Well-known member
Steve said:
I wouldn't want the organs to go to a person in prison as some have, or to a drug user who blew his/her organs and now waits in line with those who were just unlucky..

.... I guess when faced with the decision most would donate to a person they knew before they would to an unnamed person which would mean more organs would be donated.. and if it helped the family deal with the grief and allow the organ to be used, then good will come out of it..

but the implications are that someone could buy their way to the top of the list.

I saw this story on the local news.. and it is a sad story,.. did the transfer happen?

No the one babie when taken off resperator continued to breath on her own...she is no longer a possible doner....Things may change,but it is just heartbreaking to watch this unfold....I fully agree with you Steve on your take on this subject ....this story just hit me and to know one or both may pas,is very sad ......
 

Big Muddy rancher

Well-known member
Kaylee's parents are facing lots of media scrutiny because that seemed to be waiting for her to die instead of hoping for her to live. I think they were just being realist in that the medical advice that had told them she would die if taken off the respirator and didn't want her organs to be wasted and hope they daughters life could save another little girl.
It is a tough call but they do it with kidneys where you can donate of you a specific person. But I can see their point where it would create many ethical problems if it wasn't medical need that determined who's next.
 

Mrs.Greg

Well-known member
I sure feel for this young family. They wanted Kaylee's life to have meant something. They chose the donor recipient because they had come to know the family in the hospital. Goes to show though,its Gods choice when we leave this earth.
 

Mike

Well-known member
Lot's of people give kidneys to their loved ones/others while still alive.

All one would need to do is draw up legal papers, that would pass court scrutiny, to leave someone an organ after you died. Like a Will.

This is a non-issue.
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
Mrs.Greg said:
I sure feel for this young family. They wanted Kaylee's life to have meant something. They chose the donor recipient because they had come to know the family in the hospital. Goes to show though,its Gods choice when we leave this earth.

I agree with you in the feel for the family!

But disagree with you, God does not sit around deciding on who lives and dies. That would make him a pretty cruel God if he made the decision on taking the life of little babies just for his own amusement!
 

Mrs.Greg

Well-known member
aplusmnt said:
Mrs.Greg said:
I sure feel for this young family. They wanted Kaylee's life to have meant something. They chose the donor recipient because they had come to know the family in the hospital. Goes to show though,its Gods choice when we leave this earth.

I agree with you in the feel for the family!

But disagree with you, God does not sit around deciding on who lives and dies. That would make him a pretty cruel God if he made the decision on taking the life of little babies just for his own amusement!
I have a beautiful friend,my life is truly better because shes in it.Shes Jehovah Witness,we stay friends because we respect each others belief & faith. I will never debate my faith on a website with people I don't know.

It only took me a few minutes to remind myself why I won't post or read political again. Way too much negative energy in this room....something I don't need in my life right now.
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
Mrs.Greg said:
aplusmnt said:
Mrs.Greg said:
I sure feel for this young family. They wanted Kaylee's life to have meant something. They chose the donor recipient because they had come to know the family in the hospital. Goes to show though,its Gods choice when we leave this earth.

I agree with you in the feel for the family!

But disagree with you, God does not sit around deciding on who lives and dies. That would make him a pretty cruel God if he made the decision on taking the life of little babies just for his own amusement!
I have a beautiful friend,my life is truly better because shes in it.Shes Jehovah Witness,we stay friends because we respect each others belief & faith. I will never debate my faith on a website with people I don't know.

It only took me a few minutes to remind myself why I won't post or read political again. Way too much negative energy in this room....something I don't need in my life right now.

Shhhh maybe you should stay out then, that is not that negative of a comment by me you should view it with opportunity to learn something not cry because someone corrects you!

Ps. Ask your friend rather God kills little babies to be with him in heaven. Rather we die if it is Gods time for us to die. I guarantee you she will be able to explain it to you!
 

CattleArmy

Well-known member
I think families should be able to decide if there is someone they know that needs the organ. Possibly more would donate if they knew the people that needed them. Myself I view it as the families decision to make about organ donation in general.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
I think families should be able to decide if there is someone they know that needs the organ. Possibly more would donate if they knew the people that needed them. Myself I view it as the families decision to make about organ donation in general.

I didn't think of it that way, but it probably would encourage additional donations, if you had an emotional attachment with the recip.
 
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