I went through the process to donate a kidney to my close friend’s sister - but wound up discovering an underlying health issue that prevented the donation in the end. After all, I had two and only needed one - and she was a single mom with three kids at home.

I was a living donor( marrow) for a child I never met almost 20 years ago and up onto a few years ago donated blood and platelets many times per year. I just renewed my license and am again an organ donor. Sadly I can no longer donate blood for I am on multiple blood thinners.

I donated my daughter’s cord blood as well. She got a rattle and a bib saying “one of the worlds’ youngest donors” from the national marrow donor bank

Jilly, what you have managed to "walk through" and still be a joyous individual! I am interested in people's thoughts on organ donation. It seems so crystal clear to me but knowing people's reservations would be helpful to transplant organizations.

I am another organ donor who says take whatever you can use once I have passed on.

Jilly, sadly my recipient also passed away before the year mark but her mom was given my info and contacted me right after her daughter passed. we keep in touch still. She was an amazing little girl who made me a better person without even meeting me. I feel blessed to have been a small part of her life.

I am an organ donor and a body donor to be a cadaver at med school...if they'll have me. I'm done with my body by that point, so if it can be made more useful than just landfill, I'm all for it.

Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, Roarah, but glad you and her mother are able to keep in touch. It’s a poignant and important bond. I’m still very sad I didn’t get that opportunity.

Nekotish, thank you for starting this thread.

Me and my kid are both signed up as is my husband.

I signed up years ago to be an organ donor. I can't imagine any reason why someone would choose not to donate. If you know of one, other than physical issues that might preclude you from donating, please share them with me. I really am curious.

My parents are both body donors for a medical university when their times come. It's something they put a tremendous amount of research and thought into, and prepared us "kids" for what the procedure is for the body. It's all very straightforward and beautifully touching to read the info on the program. I have not yet made my own organ or body donation decision, but it is something I need to move forward on.

Jojoco, if your organs are not ok for a patient they are used for science. We learn alot about diseases like alzheimer’s and heart defects by organ donations.

As I mentioned on the other thread, I am an organ donor, and my brain will go to the Harvard brain bank for research. I have donated blood on a regular basis for many years.

I hope that my DH and his siblings will donate their brains also. One of our children, a niece, and one of DH’s siblings all suffer from the same serious mental illness. There is evidence that this same illness was present in previous generations also. I shared the donation information with all of them, but of course it is their decision. I think my in-laws would have done it, but they were deceased by the time I found out about it. I pray that research will lead to prevention of the illness or a cure.

My driver’s license says I am an organ donor. Ill make sure my kids know, too. I was surprised that when my ex died that they were able,to harvest something from his body. No one wanted to know what it was. He had been so ill for a number of years and had had major heart surgery. I know his kidneys were shot. He’d been on dialysis for years.

What the point of taking perfectly good body parts to the grave, when they could save the life of another person. My brother has willed his body to a medical school.

My understanding is they won't accept your body if you are emaciated, obese, mangled, have too many organs missing or have died of something infectious...

When Mom died, we tried to donate anything but they would accept nothing. When SIL died, they did accept her corneas.

jojoco, I don't generally post here, but I happened to read this thread, and since no one else provide any reason for not wanting to donate, here is one:

The laws were changed some time back, and now procurement companies can have access to the body parts prior to the body being seen by a coroner. This happens even in the cases where a homicide has taken place. It can interfere with evidence gathering for murder charges (sometimes the case has to be dropped by the prosecutors as a result), civil lawsuits cannot proceed, evidence of any abuse or even simply the reason why someone has died can sometimes no longer be determined because the evidence has been removed and taken away prior to an autopsy being performed. Procurers are supposed to provide certain documentation, but they don't always know what would even be useful to note for an investigation.

The LA Times (probably paywalled for most, so didn't add links) had several lengthy articles covering the problem. (October 2019)

Not being listed as a donor does not provide much of a safeguard, since family members can be persuaded to allow the donations even if the deceased had expressed their wishes not to while alive. But maybe a little bit of time might be bought for the coroner.

There are also cultural and/or religious reasons for disfavoring organ donation, the rationale being that one must be buried with all of their parts in order to pass to the afterlife.

I am an organ donor except for my eyes. This will sound silly but I have extremely poor vision (corrected with lenses) and should there be an afterlife I want my eyes with me in the hope that I will be able to see my parents, my brother, past pets and friends. . Silly, I know.

All very thoughtful responses. It's really the last thing in our lives that we have control over. There is no right or wrong or good or bad. It's just very important to make your wishes known.

Right or wrong? I suppose that's debatable...but not the kind of discussion which would be allowed here.

IAC, it is a shame to think of people who are dying because organs that could be are not available due to a lack of donors.

I've been an organ donor since I was 18. Our California driver's licenses have a pink dot on them indicating that one is a donor. My husband also knows my wishes.

When my time comes, it will be the last thing I can do to make a positive contribution to society.

I've been an organ donor for years. Our driver's licenses have a red heart on them. I also recently learned about body farms. They put bodies outside in a controlled area and let Nature do its job. They do research for forensics. There is a place somewhere in NC, I may check into it.

My niece worked as a renal dietitian and there is no age limit to donating or receiving a kidney transplant as long as other criteria are met. If someone is older, they may get a kidney from someone in a similar age group. The challenge with organ transplants is the recipient has to be relatively healthy with no other problems other than where they need the transplant, so it’s not that cut and dry. There is a guy in the Mustang club who had a double lung transplant, and he talked to my class about all the testing he had to go through to be sure he could have the transplant: cardiac, diabetes, behavioral, etc.

When my brother died last year, releasing his body was held up because they wanted to clarify about organ donation. I don’t think you can donate if you have cancer, and he was getting dialysis for failing kidneys.

For medical school donation, I believe you cannot donate organs or have an autopsy/embalming, unless things have changed. I definitely benefitted from donated bodies in gross anatomy lab, so I am grateful to anyone who does this. On the first day they asked if we knew of any relatives who had recently donated their bodies just so we didn’t wind up with them in the lab.

I think that Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in organ donation for religious reasons. My paternal grandmother was a JW, and she would refuse to accept blood transfusions, although when she was in the hospital, my father donated blood for her anyway.

Some Buddhist religions (or perhaps Hindu) say that one's full body must be cremated after death, in order to release the spirit and end all ties to the Earth.

I personally do not ever want to receive any transplants, except perhaps from someone I know and like. I don't think I could live with someone else's body part inside me, but that's just how I feel.

My mother was going to donate her body to a med school but there was considerable expense involved. As I recall, it was going to be roughly double the cost of burial as the body needed embalmed and transported, tested, etc. Being frugal, she decided against it.

DH and I, and our teenaged boys, are listed as organ donors on our drivers licenses.

I’ve had the organ donor designation on my driver’s license for years. And my family knows my wishes. DH too. It’s such an easy thing to do, but I suppose there are some who do not like the idea.

I have been a designated organ donor since I got my driver’s license at age 19. When my husband and i met in college he worked part time for the Lion’s eye bank. He wore a beeper and went to hospital morgues and nursing homes to harvest cornea donations. Several times our dates were interrupted with a side trip to a morgue. After the corneas were harvested we had to take them to a lab at the center’s research building at Emory (where we were students) to evaluate them with a slit lamp exam, phoning the results to a physician and leaving the corneas in some sort of preservative, usually for use within a day. It was very interesting and I was so impressed with how sensitively the process was handled and described to the families. DH was occasionally asked to talk with them himself and it was wonderful experience, not just for his future training as a doctor but for him to see people at the worst times of their lives who could also be the most generous.

I have it on my drivers license that I am an organ donor, and I also donate blood regularly.

I've heard some people say they are afraid to list themselves as organ donors because they think they won't get life-saving medical care if someone needs their organs.

Also opted as an organ donor on my DL since the 1980s.

I do agree about wanting to be helpful to others, but I also understand the religious beliefs side of it.

Kitchenwitch111, that is a more widespread belief than one might think. I ran into it frequently in my career.

I have chosen to be an donor. Our kids and my DH are too. I too cannot see why one would not do this.

We are both organ donors. It is indicated on our drivers license by a small red heart.

It warms my heart that so many of you have opted to be organ donors. At the same time, I do understand that spiritual beliefs can overrule in a situation like this. I do not believe for one second that, at least in Canada or any other first world country, you would be denied any life-saving measures based on the fact that you have indicated a desire to donate your organs after death. I'm sorry that people actually believe that to me true.

I have been a donor for decades-it is on my driver's license. I will need to check to see if there is an age cut-off here. If so, I hope they will use mine for research. Then, compost me!

Nova Scotia now has an opt-out (presumed consent) organ donation law. Anyone can opt out but you’re assumed to be “in” unless you say otherwise. That said a significant number of organ donations are stymied by family members of the deceased who veto donations even of registered donors. 20 percent of donations in Ontario in 2016 were vetoed. The family veto is a matter of policy from donor organizations, not legislation.

I have chosen to be an organ donor - made that decision 40 years ago when I was a teen. Sometime in my 20's, maybe, it became a designation on our driver's licenses. If I can help someone else, I surely would like to, especially when my parts don't mean anything to me anymore. I also donate platelets every 2 weeks. They are desperately needed in our area, more than blood.

I’ve read that some of the religious groups that have strict rules about organ donation, allow it within their followers; I.e. you can donate to someone within that same religion.

Yes, I'm on the organ donor registry. I'm also on Be the Match -- bone marrow registry.

I was a match about 5 years ago! rather than taking marrow, they took stem cells, which is way more common these days. it wasn't easy, but it wasn't all that hard either, and completely worth it. a wonderful experience, I highly recommend joining the registry if you're able. for some people, finding a match is incredibly difficult (even harder if they're mixed race), so they need as many contributors as possible.

@User That's wonderful - thank you for doing that. Unfortunately I have an auto immune disease which prevents me from giving blood or platelets so I figure the next best thing I can do is to be a voice. Some of my organs may not be suitable for transplant but I hope that my entirety can be used for research if nothing else.

Of course it's very helpful to get the word out. Donating to research is very important too!

For some reason my Facebook page sends me Honor Walk videos. I can't not watch them and then am a drooling mess afterwards.

@graywings123 They are hard to watch for sure. I think by putting the videos "out there" families and medical staff hope that they will strike a chord and encourage people to donate. @User Both my daughters have been blood donors since they were the age that they could do so - well almost. Initially one of my daughters resisted due to the regulation at the time that gay men could not donate. Her best friend is a gay male and he was no more "promiscuous" than any of her straight friends. I had a chat with her and told her that while I admired her standing up for her friend that way, she could still donate blood but be a voice for change. She took that to heart and wrote letters to the powers that be and gave blood while she waited for changes to be made. In 2022 the Red Cross changed their policy and now questions all genders on their sexual activity. I am in no way saying that my daughter was responsible for the change. She was just one of many voices.

The regulations were lifted, but they're still not great. There's still a 3 month deferral.

I'm glad you were able to change your daughter's mind! That regulation is not just a red cross policy. It's a very strict FDA guideline, so boycotting a blood bank is not going to help anyone.

this statement by the Red Cross is encouraging:

The Red Cross recognizes the hurt this policy has caused to many in the LGBTQ+ community and believes blood donation eligibility should not be determined by methods that are based upon sexual orientation. We are committed to working with partners toward achieving this goal.

We continue to assist in evaluating alternative donor eligibility criteria and the expanded use of new technologies to work toward elimination of donor eligibility questions based on sexual orientation that would no longer be necessary. However, as a regulated organization, we cannot unilaterally enact changes concerning the MSM deferral policy.

Like Dawn I have had the pink

dot since I was 18.

It is marked on my driver's license. I have had cancer for 20 years and selfishly don't donate blood because I feel like my body has been a pin cushion too often already. I have no idea if they would want my blood or not. But once I'm gone, let them pick me apart for whatever scraps they can use.

My uncles both died of Parkinson's and donated their brains to research. They had it all arranged and worked out beforehand and our family just had to call a number when they were close to death and when it happened. It made them both feel incredibly proud and useful to do so, especially because they were very civic minded people and Parkinson's robbed them of their ability to volunteer, sit on boards, and do as much good as they would have wished to do.

They both had completely warped senses of humor so there were lots of good jokes made before and after death, and by the rabbi at the funeral about what could be learned from looking at their brains!