Should I donate my organs?

[Deja Q]

(uh, after I've snuffed it...)

I've had so many antidepressants, battery compounds (e.g. lithium), et al, pumped into me that I can't even give blood. Well, there's another reason for that - stupid as that one is but I don't entirely blame them either... at least I wouldn't 20 years ago...

What can they do with bits and pieces so lit up they wouldn't be of much use? Well, I can think of a part or two, but I'd rather be buried with those...

[WindRavenX]

1. hell yeah!

Despite the stuff you have in you, I bet you still can donate several organs (maybe not the liver)-- eyes, heart, kidneys-- which CAN and WILL save someone's life.

I think it's one of the best things you can do.

[Book Lover]

2. Well, if you don't think the organ transplant industry will have you,

you might consider donating your corpse to a medical school for student use.

Oh, and check this out, too: http://www.slate.com/id/2156220/?nav=tap3

Hands Off My Kidney!Who owns a donated organ?
By Kathryn Lewis

Two weeks ago, New York state's highest court ruled that you can't sue an organ donor network for giving away a kidney, even if the donor's family wanted you to have it. The case began several years ago, when a widow named her husband's childhood friend as the recipient of his kidneys. The friend died of renal failure in June, and his family wants to sue the network for donating one of the kidneys to someone else. Who owns a donated organ?

No one, really. American courts have generally refused to treat a corpse as someone's "property," and the same ambiguity extends to the organs. A common-law tradition dating back centuries holds that a dead body cannot be "owned," even by its heirs. That means the heirs can't make a claim on the body's organs, either.

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