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You Said ‘Yes’ to Being an Organ Donor. What Exactly Does That Mean?
The New York Times ^ | July 20, 2025 | Trinity Webster-Bass

Posted on 07/20/2025 12:24:39 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Organ donation saves lives and enjoys widespread public support. But many people are unsure what they agree to when they sign up.

If there is a small red heart with the words “organ donor” at the bottom of your driver’s license, that puts you in a group of over 173 million Americans who are in the national organ donor registry.

Organ donation has wide public support, but medical ethicists say there is still confusion about what it looks like and how it affects patients and families. How do you become an organ donor?

Any adult can register. In most states, teenagers as young as 15 may also express their intent to donate, though parents can revoke that decision.

Today, around 90 percent of donors join their state registry at their local D.M.V. Others sign up while registering to vote, or through an online form linked to their local organ procurement organizations, known as O.P.O.s, which are nonprofit federal contractors in each state that coordinate transplants.

Donate Life America, an advocacy organization, maintains a nationwide list of online registries.

Donors can sign up or change their status at the D.M.V. or online, though residents of some states have had trouble removing themselves from the registry.

Is the decision legally binding?

It depends on how you die.

If you are declared legally dead after testing shows no signs of neurological activity — known colloquially as being “brain-dead” — then the organ donor status on your license is legally binding, even if your family disagrees. In these cases, patients are kept on a ventilator until their organs are retrieved.

If a critically ill patient is in a coma and not expected to recover, then it is usually up to the family to decide whether to withdraw life support and declare the patient a donor,...

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
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1 posted on 07/20/2025 12:24:39 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

No, I’m sorry, but can’t do it.


2 posted on 07/20/2025 12:29:32 PM PDT by fwdude (Why is there a "far/radical right," but damned if they'll admit that there is a far/radical left?)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

> What Exactly Does That Mean?

Eventually, that you’ll be viewed as spare parts on the hoof for those deemed more needy and deserving.


3 posted on 07/20/2025 12:31:13 PM PDT by Flatus I. Maximus (I didn't leave the Democratic Party. It LEFT me, and keeps going further left. )
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To: fwdude
No, I’m sorry, but can’t do it.

Seems stupid to agree to being worth a whole lot more to them dead than you are alive.

4 posted on 07/20/2025 12:32:28 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Democrats are the Party of racism, anger, hate and violence.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

It means doctors and hospitals can make hundreds of thousands of dollars off your organs but your doesn’t get a dime.


5 posted on 07/20/2025 12:32:52 PM PDT by Texas Eagle ("Throw me to the wolves and I'll return leading the pack"- Donald J. Trump)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
I said "no" for one reason...and one reason only. I've been a diabetic for years and there's firm proof that the diabetes has cause real damage to my heart,kidneys and liver. I wouldn't want anyone to get my damaged organs.

Although I can't be sure my guess is that a skilled physician/surgeon could look at my organs and see that they shouldn't be transplanted.

6 posted on 07/20/2025 12:36:49 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Import The Third World,Become The Third World)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Sorry, i have donated literally gallons of blood. They can get organs from some other place.


7 posted on 07/20/2025 12:39:13 PM PDT by yuleeyahoo (“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” - the deep-state)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Since Mickey Mantle skipped the line for a liver transplant, I’ve stopped being a potential organ donor.


8 posted on 07/20/2025 12:41:07 PM PDT by thegagline (Sic semper tyrannis! Trump & Vance, 2024! (Formerly) Goldwater & Thomas Sowell)
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To: fwdude
I'd encourage you to rethink that. I worked for years at a hospital famous for its heroic work with heart,lung,kidney and liver transplants.

Although I'm no biblical scholar my guess is that The Almighty approves of things like donating organs.

9 posted on 07/20/2025 12:41:45 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Import The Third World,Become The Third World)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I just think of the punishments from 17th century England, where they would draw and quarter a convicted criminal and send his severed extremities to all parts of England. This seems similar to that. I want to be intact even as a dead person.


10 posted on 07/20/2025 12:43:17 PM PDT by fwdude (Why is there a "far/radical right," but damned if they'll admit that there is a far/radical left?)
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To: Flatus I. Maximus

What the NY Slimes won’t openly admit is that what they’re claiming is that we’re just as bad regarding organ donation as are the Red Chinese.


11 posted on 07/20/2025 12:43:35 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Import The Third World,Become The Third World)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“It says here you’re a liver donor.”
“But I’m still using it!”


12 posted on 07/20/2025 12:44:44 PM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: Gay State Conservative

What stops me from donating is the knowledge that doctors can declare me dead and, in many cases, immediately start harvesting organs.


13 posted on 07/20/2025 12:46:18 PM PDT by jimtorr
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To: Gay State Conservative
I said "no" for one reason...and one reason only.

My wife can decide if the situation arises, but I am not going to sign a document that makes me worth more to them dead than I am alive.

14 posted on 07/20/2025 12:47:53 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Democrats are the Party of racism, anger, hate and violence.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Considering the medical community is about money and not my health, no freaking way am I giving them permissions to kill me to profit on my organs.


15 posted on 07/20/2025 12:48:16 PM PDT by CodeToad
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To: Gay State Conservative

Nope. When people’s time is up for whatever reason, they enter eternity like everyone else.

I have developed a lot of distrust of the medical industry over the past decade. They are mostly arrogant, conceited, self-righteous and disrespectful of patients’ decisions which go against their advice. I had a urologist drop me for questioning a recommended course of action. They are NOT out for the best interests of the people they claim to help.


16 posted on 07/20/2025 12:48:22 PM PDT by fwdude (Why is there a "far/radical right," but damned if they'll admit that there is a far/radical left?)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I volunteer to donate only two organs: brain and gonads. Maybe that’s three if they give the gonads to two recipients.


17 posted on 07/20/2025 12:48:54 PM PDT by webheart (Notice how I said all of that without any hyphens, and only complete words. )
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To: thegagline

See Post #9. OK...there could be cases of favoritism. If my heart was being given to someone I’d rater it go to a 15 year old kid who has potential for leading a productive life than to some 60 year old billionaire. But the odds are better that the 15 year old would get it than the billionaire.


18 posted on 07/20/2025 12:49:12 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Import The Third World,Become The Third World)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

What Exactly Does That Mean?

It means:
Don’t oversleep...
Don’t sleep too soundly...
Don’t stop snoring...
Don’t sleep on sidewalks or in alleys...
Don’t sign any body part donation document...


19 posted on 07/20/2025 12:49:35 PM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
I would never agree to be an organ donor unless I had a guarantee that those in an operating room had no idea if I was an organ donor; then, I might consider it.

Medicine here in the greatest country in the world has demonstrated itself to be in the bottom reaches of the toilet since Covid hit; far too many medical professionals have simply gone along with the push for the MRNA jab. I would also point out that our blood supply is contaminated with MRNA-infused blood.

20 posted on 07/20/2025 12:51:28 PM PDT by Captain Walker ("Justice exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable." – Proverbs 14:34)
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