Hacker News Reader

Comment by labbyz | Hacker News Reader

Make it opt-in. Then you give control away to the government deliberately.

All it takes is a simple checkbox to say you want to be a part of it.

It should be easier to receive mailing list spam, than it is to sign over your body, but opt-out makes it the other way around.

Forgetting (or being unwilling to be forced) to sign a checkbox does not make one a willing participant, but an unwitting one. I understand this saves lives, but then again, lots of unconstitional actions may save lives. No excuse. No convience.

You, and only you, as an adult, has sovereignity over your body. Opt-out is a grave breach of this sovereignity. That is the spin "the government wants control over my body": A violation of your human rights and a government-run organ market.

View on HN

Bodies are a kind of use it or lose it deal. If you are buried, everything except your bones and teeth will be eaten. Organ donation is the least of your sovereignty problems.

Make it opt-in and secure, and I have no problem with it.

For instance, send a letter every 6 months where you tell of the social benefits of donating your organs and thank-you notes from receivers. Sponsor national organ donation days. Even properly aligned incentives: Make certain government-sponsored health care cheaper and more available for donors than non-donors.

But make any opt-in cryptographically verifiable, and signed with an e-ID. I really don't want my opt-out hacked during DEFCON 2023. And implement it correctly: often government attempts to curb self-ownership are well-intented (physical and mental healthcare), but ill-executed (block internet porn, close fast food restaurants, ban psychedelic drugs) and they compound.

I full well realize that anything that happens after my death is out of my hands. Even if I don't donate now and opt-out, maybe in a 1000 years they can clone some of my DNA to grow new organs. It is purely about opt-in vs. opt-out for me (and about democratically consulting the majority opinion on an opt-out).

Opt-out (happens during life and on life-support) of self-ownership [1] is, to me, a violation of human rights. One of the most fundamental and innate rights, which should be a given (but could be opted out of by opting-in for donorship). To partly take away a right, unless you say "no!" sets a dangerous precedent.

> Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No-one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law. - Human Rights Act 1998

> The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. [not: are beneficial to others, unless you want to posit that opting out of donorship injures others in need] - Jefferson

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ownership

The problem people have with organ donation is that it requires the donor to still be alive, but without brain activity, when they donate.

So it boils down to what do you consider death?

Do you have any links regarding the need to be alive? My impression is this is only true for some transplant types.

Google: "organ donation cardiac death".

> My impression is this is only true for some transplant types.

Other way around. Organ donation after cardiac death is only possible for certain types, and only in very limited circumstances.

Hopefully things will improve because it would vastly increase the number of possible donations. The vast majority of people can not donate organs even if they want to - it requires a very specific type of death (brain death where the body is just fine).

Many people also have religious and ethical problems with it because you are killing someone. Obviously that depends on how they define death, which has no commonly accepted definition, the current definition "brain death" was set that way to make organ donation possible, and that makes many people uneasy.

It's opt-in now, and easy to opt in, yet despite many people saying they support it, few opt in.

Hence changing it to opt out - don't want to donate organs? Fine - opt out.

> It's opt-in now, and easy to opt in, yet despite many people saying they support it, few opt in.

Let's take this as a fact. You don't solve the problem by flipping this around, because then you only solve for social gain. You just make it worse for the individual:

> It's opt-out now, and easy to opt out, yet despite many people saying they don't support it, few opt out.

Now you have people not supporting (or wanting to remain blissfully unaware of) donorship, registered as donors. You bank on apathy and ignorance, because a simple and deliberate opt-in was not convincing enough, and turned supporters for or against, but still, for whatever reason, on the fence, into fair gain.

Having your cake and eating it: If it is very easy to go through opt-in process, yet there are problems with registering a deliberate choice, then it will also be very easy to go through opt-out process, but there will be the same problems with registering a deliberate choice. The ease cancels out, and the problems remain. But taking away a human right, until registered protest, is far worse than a deliberate opting out of it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com