Organ donor

I've had an organ donor card since 2001. It requests that after my death any part of my body can be used for the treatment of others.

It seems to me like a harmless and altruistic thing to do. What could be more generous than bequeathing parts of my body to others who urgently need them?

And yet there's still a large number of people who oppose organ donation. Transplant waiting lists are growing and yet 2½ million people are refusing to help. The number of organ donations is actually falling.

What on earth is stopping people from becoming organ donors? Once you're dead you have no further use for your bodily organs so why shouldn't they be passed on to people who desperately need them? The dead person isn't going to object, so what's the problem?

So what if granny was totally opposed to organ donations? Surely the urgent need of a living patient for a vital organ trumps the well-meaning observance of granny's wishes?

Organ donor

For 22 years I've had an organ donor card which says that after I die any one of my organs can be donated to someone who needs it. I'm glad parts of my body can potentially benefit a person in dire medical need.

It isn't quite that simple of course. To start with, only one per cent of people will die in circumstances where organ donation is possible. Obviously you can't donate organs if you've died of some serious illness affecting the whole body, or if your organs have been damaged in (say) a car accident, or if you've died abroad and it would take time to return the body to the UK.

Also my family would have to be consulted about donating my organs, and if they objected my body would have to remain intact. Doctors won't proceed if the family objects, however useful my organs might be (though I see that next of kin don't have the legal right to veto your decision).

My immediate family is my sister, my brother in law and my niece. but whether they count as family for the purpose of consultation isn't clear.

So although theoretically it's entirely my choice to allow my organs to be donated, in practice my family can overrule me and doctors' hands are tied. I don't agree with that at all. I don't see why my family should have any say in the matter, since it's my body and not theirs. It's especially perverse when over 7,000 people in the UK are waiting desperately for life-saving organ transplants.

I would like to think that someone in urgent need had been given one (or several) of my organs and had a new lease of life, and that my body hadn't simply gone to waste.

Vital organs

For many years I've carried in my bag a card that allows any part of my body to be donated to others if I die. This seems a much better idea than simply burying or burning them.

If I have perfectly healthy organs that can benefit others, and there are people out there desperate to have them, why not pass them on? Why not recycle them and keep someone else alive and well?

I really don't understand those individuals who are too squeamish or possessive or fastidious not to permit such therapeutic use of what they leave behind. It's just flesh and tissue in the end.

There's an irrational fear that if someone allows the use of their organs after death, their death will somehow be surreptiously hastened to harvest parts that are urgently needed.

I don't know of any cases where this has happened, though I know of instances where people already dead have had bits secretly removed and stored without the knowledge or permission of the relatives.

Even if I were to be the victim of such unauthorised removal, I still wouldn't object if the parts were being put to a good use such as research or training. They'd be no more use to me, after all.

And isn't the possibility of helping someone less fortunate (or even half a dozen) more important than the tiny risk of that offer being abused by someone unscrupulous? It's like refusing to give to charity because someone somewhere might waste the money on boardroom chandeliers.

One of the best-known cases of posthumous organ donation is that of Nicholas Green, a seven year old Californian boy who was killed by robbers in Italy. His organs and corneas were donated to seven different Italians waiting for transplants. Organ donations in Italy have tripled since his murder and thousands of people who would have died are still alive and healthy.

How could anyone say no to such simple, undemanding altruism?