Slow Suttee

[pr1ss]

Tomorrow the  Regis and Kelly show will do their annual Valentine's week wedding. It will feature a young viewer couple chosen for their endearing qualities. Along with the excitement of a glorious gown and the latest fashion in cake, we know that an element of tragedy accompanies this nuptial feast. The groom suffers from an autoimmune disease

Comments

Quicksand? No, it's slow-sand! What's your hurry?

[montecristo]

Suttee is a rather pointed and inflamatory term in this case, don't you think? In the case of organ donation, the efforts of the donor are not self-sacrificial in that osstensibly the donor values the donee and the donor's efforts are not fatal to the donor. Furthermore, the donor's efforts produce real, tangible benefit for the donee. The thing that makes suttee so abhorrent is that the spouse is murdered (or most charitably to the others involved) commits suicide, to no other good end at all. The deceased spouse is not brought back to life, and is indeed beyond any comfort at all.

Just yesterday, I read an article about a possible case of a kind of suttee that occurred over 5000 years ago. What I found most surprising about the article and the comments that followed it were the outrageous assumptions that people were eager to make about the dead people. For all they know, the woman may have hated the fellow in life. Perhaps the placement of her body in embrace of the dead man was injustice to the woman, not reverence for their feelings for one another. The skeletal remains tell very little about what the two people were to one another in life -- just that their ends were obviously violent. They obviously didn't get into that embrace themselves, but were placed that way by others.

Re: Quicksand? No, it's slow-sand! What's your hurry?

[pr1ss]

Fascinating news item. Perhaps they were in a co-ed army and met their ends in battle.

Not immediately fatal in most cases, doesn't equate to: as as safe as donating blood. If it were, there would be no shortage, and no need to discuss whether third world people should be able to receive payment for kidneys.

Re: Quicksand? No, it's slow-sand! What's your hurry?

[montecristo]

Perhaps they were in a co-ed army and met their ends in battle.

That was one of my speculations as well!

Re: Quicksand? No, it's slow-sand! What's your hurry?

[montecristo]

The shortage is not due to the safety of the procedure, it's due to the large amount of pain and inconvenience involved - nephrectomy is usually very major surgery, with weeks or months of recuperation.

In any case, the main reason for the shortage is people's unwillingness to donate their dead relative's organs, not due to a lack of living donors.

Re: Quicksand? No, it's slow-sand! What's your hurry?

[pr1ss]

Still anonymous I see.

My post was about living donors. Pain and injury, (and possible death from complications,) requiring weeks or months before returning to a normal level of activity is not desirable. Women should not have to experience this in greater numbers.

Re: Quicksand? No, it's slow-sand! What's your hurry?

[escarpe]

Er, this is vollentary yes? As someone said?
If someone wants to give up a kidney then that's their busiess surely?

Re: Quicksand? No, it's slow-sand! What's your hurry?

[pr1ss]

People voluntarily do things that are not in their own best interests. If we gave the same degree of societal approval for donating an arm (since most people have two) to someone who was suffering from complete armlessness, many people would feel moved to give the gift of dexterity.

Re: Quicksand? No, it's slow-sand! What's your hurry?

[escarpe]

And how would having a lot of uni-dexters slowly typing away be a bad thing? It's their arm! If they want to give it away to someone who can't even....well you know....then let them. Your right people do, do a lot of things that are not in their best interest like smoking for instance, sureley education is your best tool in this fight. After that then it really is their problem.

Re: Quicksand? No, it's slow-sand! What's your hurry?

[pr1ss]

I'm mostly in agreement with you. It's hard to be against freedom :)

At the moment doctors are not recommending smoking at a way to donate your lungs and voluntarily improve the health of tobacco company bank accounts.

That's the point of my post. Organ donation is being promoted as an overwhelming good. I feel that there are more drawbacks to it than its proponents would like to admit.

Re: Quicksand? No, it's slow-sand! What's your hurry?

[escarpe]

All I know is that I would never do anything like donate an organ without researching it thoroughly and I would have little time or respect for anyone who would. As for people who are saying it's prefectly safe, well that's patient nonsense I don't have two kidneys so that I can donate one to other people.