MPs vote down bid for default organ donation
By George Jones, Political Editor
(Filed: 29/06/2004)
An attempt by MPs to change the law to make organ donation automatic unless someone has previously registered their objections failed in the Commons last night.
An amendment to the Human Tissue Bill proposing an "opt-out system" for organ donation was rejected by 307 votes to 60, a Government majority of 247.
The Government pressed ahead with a three-line whip requiring Labour MPs to vote down the amendment despite protests from Labour backbenchers. Nineteen Labour MPs voted for the amendment against the Government's wishes, including former Cabinet ministers Clare Short and Robin Cook.
Liberal Democrat and Tory MPs were given a free vote on the issue, which party leaders said was a matter of conscience. John Reid, the Health Secretary, intervened in the debate to defend the imposition of a whip on Labour MPs.
He said the decision over what should happen to a person's body or their organs was for the conscience of individual citizens in this country.
"It is not for this Parliament, by free vote or other vote, to impose upon them a requisition of their bodies after death for the state. We are giving the freedom of conscience to the people of this country," Mr Reid said.
The Bill aims to prevent a repetition of the organ retention scandals at Bristol Royal Infirmary and Alder Hey, Liverpool, where children's bodies were stripped of their organs without the permission of parents.
Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, who proposed the amendment, said the present system for organ donation - where the final decision was left with relatives - did not suit the ill, medical staff, the dead or their families.
Increasing numbers of patients in desperate need of a transplant were dying before a suitable organ could be found for them. Relatives were being asked to make an extremely difficult decision "at the height of their grief". Doctors and nurses were being forced to approach those grieving families to ask them to choose whether to allow loved ones' organs to be donated, he added.
Under his proposals, everyone would be regularly reminded to put their names on a national register if they did not want to be a donor. If they died, doctors would check the records and if there was no entry ask the family if they were aware of any objections.
Unless they were - or could persuade doctors that going ahead would cause relatives "significant distress" - consent would be presumed and the organs taken.
He said the extra safeguards made it a form of "soft" presumed consent - as practised in Belgium - as opposed to harder systems where relatives were given no say.
David Wilshire (C, Spelthorne) said doctors would have to tell relatives: "I'm sorry you are simply not upset enough" if they decided to go ahead with the donation. "That, for me, is hell," he added. Tam Dalyell, Labour MP for Linlithgow, said for him "hell" was "relatives of those who are waiting for a transplant who see matching tissue going up in crematorium incinerators" from people who would have been "all too happy to help someone else".
Andrew Murrison, Conservative health spokesman, said he was against the opt-out measure, adding: "Presumed consent is no consent at all."
Rosie Winterton, health minister, said the Government believed strongly that if society wanted people to donate organs, whether for research or transplantation, "we should actually ask them for their permission". "The state does not own our bodies, neither do researchers, nor clinicians."
The 19 Labour rebels who voted for the amendment against the Government's wishes were: Robin Cook (Livingston); Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North); Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow); Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich); Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North); Lynne Jones (Birmingham Selly Oak); John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington); Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead); Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway); Lewis Moonie (Kirkcaldy); Peter Pike (Burnley); Stephen Pound (Ealing North); Brian Sedgemore (Hackney South and Shoreditch); Clare Short (Birmingham Ladywood); Dennis Skinner (Bolsover); Rachel Squire (Dunfermline West); David Taylor (Leicestershire North West); Alan Williams (Swansea West); Tony Wright (Cannock Chase).
It’s a very difficult decision but I support the proposal, there is such an important need for organs that I think we should assume consent and leave it up to people who object to withdraw from the scheme.
I can understand the government stopping the proposal though it would probably have been politically very difficult to introduce with lots a room for bad publicity.
I'm with you. I think that consent should be assumed. The person is dead after all and won't need the organs anymore. There's such a desperate need of organs in Canada that my uncle waited over a year for a liver transplant. Such waits could be reduced if organ donation was manditory. If people are against it then they can go through the process to have themselves removed from it.
M1891/30: A bad day on the range is better then a good day at work.
I agree it’s an appalling situation when people in need of organs are suffering and dieing just because people who would have had no objection to their organs being donated never quite get round to registering as a donor.
Frank Hipper wrote:Most states in the US only require you checking off a space on your driver's license application to register.
Any idea how long that’s been going on and what proportion of people tick yes? Do any of the states require a tick to stay off the register?
Incidentally I’ve heard that one reason for the shortage of organs is that improvements in car safety have reduced the number of healthy types dieing in car accidents and consequently reduced the supply of useable organs.
Down with airbags! Seriously, it's just a check-box, no extra work. And yes, I am a walking human spare parts bin.
Chronological Incontinence: Time warps around the poster. The thread topic winks out of existence and reappears in 1d10 posts.
Out of Context Theatre, this week starring Darth Nostril.
-'If you really want to fuck with these idiots tell them that there is a vaccine for chemtrails.'
White Haven wrote:Down with airbags! Seriously, it's just a check-box, no extra work. And yes, I am a walking human spare parts bin.
Does the UK even have such an implement in the first place?
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
Frank Hipper wrote:Most states in the US only require you checking off a space on your driver's license application to register.
Any idea how long that’s been going on and what proportion of people tick yes? Do any of the states require a tick to stay off the register?
Incidentally I’ve heard that one reason for the shortage of organs is that improvements in car safety have reduced the number of healthy types dieing in car accidents and consequently reduced the supply of useable organs.
That's been the way of things for twenty years here, at least in California.
Our High School Driver's Ed programme gently recommended for you to become an organ donor. How many actually do decide to donate is anyone's guess, I think. Probably not a matter of public record until someone actually becomes a donor on death...
How about unless you're a signed up organ doner, you are inelligable for organs should you ever need them. To go even further, if you're not on the list, you can't receive blood transfusions either.
The most basic assumption about the world is that it does not contradict itself.
Fuck no, I'm going to the grave with all my internal organs still in my
body, unless they've been smeared all over the pavement.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
Wicked Pilot wrote:How about unless you're a signed up organ doner, you are inelligable for organs should you ever need them. To go even further, if you're not on the list, you can't receive blood transfusions either.
There would be a certain satisfaction to such a policy (+ as a long time registered donor it would help my chances should I ever be unlucky enough to need a transplant) but I foresee too many tragic sob stories in the press
TheDarkling wrote:The Driving license application form has a box to tick if you wish to be an organ donor, at least it did when I got mine a few years ago.
I think that’s a relatively resent development which should help, but correct me if I’m wrong we don’t renew our licences very often in the UK do we? So most adults in the UK still won’t be donors unless they actually pick up and fill out the donation form.
fgalkin wrote:Yes, but the descision is made when I'm alive
And why should someone be able to dictate what happens to their organs after they die? The need is too great to afford people the luxury of tossing them in the garbage.
fgalkin wrote:Yes, but the descision is made when I'm alive
And why should someone be able to dictate what happens to their organs after they die? The need is too great to afford people the luxury of tossing them in the garbage.
It's like a dead man's posessions, they're still his. If he doesn't want them given out then that's his business. It's similar to the reason we don't loot dead people's houses.
"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"
- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist
"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin
fgalkin wrote:Yes, but the descision is made when I'm alive
And why should someone be able to dictate what happens to their organs after they die? The need is too great to afford people the luxury of tossing them in the garbage.
It's like a dead man's posessions, they're still his. If he doesn't want them given out then that's his business. It's similar to the reason we don't loot dead people's houses.
Exactly. The organs belong to me and my family, and I decide whether to give them away, not the government.
fgalkin wrote:Last time I checked, it was still my body, and I still have control over it.
If you're dead, you have control of exactly jack and shit.
Yes, but the descision is made when I'm alive
You go too far Raptor people have a right to decide what happens to their bodies whilst they’re living and when they die which means they can choose not to have their organs harvested, what I’m saying is that we should have a system where they have to actively choose not to donate.
Gandalf wrote:It's like a dead man's posessions, they're still his. If he doesn't want them given out then that's his business. It's similar to the reason we don't loot dead people's houses.
Can you will your estate to just sit there, untouched, while nature recroaches and deteriorates everything? If you don't will it to someone, the state will take it.
Plekhanov wrote:You go too far Raptor people have a right to decide what happens to their bodies whilst they’re living and when they die which means they can choose not to have their organs harvested, what I’m saying is that we should have a system where they have to actively choose not to donate.
I know what you're saying. I'm saying the idea that the dead have rights to anything when the needs of the living are of far greater concern is utter bullshit.
Gandalf wrote:It's like a dead man's posessions, they're still his. If he doesn't want them given out then that's his business. It's similar to the reason we don't loot dead people's houses.
Can you will your estate to just sit there, untouched, while nature recroaches and deteriorates everything? If you don't will it to someone, the state will take it.
I thought un-willed items went to the family? I'm ok with them making a decision, but the state has no right to harvest my body without mine or my next of kin's consent.
If I'm dead and don't care, why not make grave-robbing legal? Why should I care about the guy who digs me up and steals the ring I was buried with?
"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"
- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist
"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin
Gandalf wrote:It's like a dead man's posessions, they're still his. If he doesn't want them given out then that's his business. It's similar to the reason we don't loot dead people's houses.
Can you will your estate to just sit there, untouched, while nature recroaches and deteriorates everything? If you don't will it to someone, the state will take it.
But dead bodies are automatically willed to the family
Plekhanov wrote:You go too far Raptor people have a right to decide what happens to their bodies whilst they’re living and when they die which means they can choose not to have their organs harvested, what I’m saying is that we should have a system where they have to actively choose not to donate.
I know what you're saying. I'm saying the idea that the dead have rights to anything when the needs of the living are of far greater concern is utter bullshit.
Really? So if you see a guy die on the street, you will take all of his posessions?
Seriously, it's just a check-box, no extra work. And yes, I am a walking human spare parts bin.
