October 26, 2004

Meet Your Match... If you or a family member needed an organ to stay alive, would you use a service like this? Do you think anyone should? Would you ever pay for an organ for yourself or a family member? Is this automatically wrong?
posted by moneyjane 20 years ago
  • It's dangerous to say this is wrong, because the Norns will punish you by you having to need this service.
  • Truly...I have only one fully-functioning kidney, so I've probably jinxed myself into the Stone Age just by posting this.
  • MJ, forgive the slight derail but your post reminded me that I had been meaning to look into the organ donation process here in BC. It used to be that you could just have a sticker attached to your driver's license but that is no longer the case. So I found the BC Transplant Society's website and the entire enrollment procedure is amazingly quick and efficient - took less than 2 minutes. Fill out an online form, download it, print it and fax it back. Very slick design. Too bad it isn't better publicised.
  • I'll see if I can find a form at my doctor's office, as my printer is out of ink mysteriously not working at the moment.
  • Hmmm, bathtub, ice, bloody writing on the wall .... This may not be a good day after all.
  • see also LifeSharers. they pledge to leave their organs to others on their LifeSharers list. talk about the ultimate clique!
  • LifeSharers I'll trade you an organ for invitations to Orkut, Gmail, and let you post as me on MeFi. </sarcasm> More seriously, the whole topic seriously creeps me out. I think that comes partly from reading "The Jigsaw Man" by Larry Niven when I was young.
  • This site is about live donation - here in the UK it's only relatives that can donate organs in such operations (you could donate a lung, or half a lung, while still alive, as well as other littler bits). It seems that in the US anyone can give an organ to anyone else... strikes me as weird, but I'm not sure why.