Questions, Questions…

The latest drive (pun intended) for organ donation is – on the face of it –  merely a subtle change to the way drivers applying for a new licence are already questioned.

Motorists will have to answer a question about organ donation when applying for a driving licence in a new pilot scheme with the DVLA, it has been announced.

Actually, it’s not so new. The question has been there all along. What is changing is the need to answer the question as opposed to skipping it.

The DVLA form is one of the main ways in which people register their wishes to donate their organs after their death but currently they can avoid answering the question altogether.

from July they will have to indicate one of the following: yes I would like register on the NHS Organ Donor Register; I do not want to answer this question now; or I am already registered on the NHS Organ Donor Register.

So, as I said, on the face of it, no change. After all, “I do not want to answer this question now” is pretty much the same as skipping it. Much as one of those diversity forms I had to fill in recently. It wouldn’t let me skip the question, so I had to compulsorily answer each one regarding my sex, sexuality, religion and ethnicity. The answer for each one was an identical “I prefer not to answer” or words to that effect. The point is, though; I shouldn’t be faced with having to give any answer, should I choose not to do so. Indeed, I should, should I prefer, not have to be asked in the first place, but that is an ask too far, I suspect.

I’ve been castigated for my stance on organ donation before, but I remain unapologetic on it. The decision to give is a personal one and should not be as a consequence of badgering, nagging, bullying, guilt tripping or presumed consent. Forcing me to answer a question such as this merely increases the likelihood of a negative response –  in much the same way as trying to badger me into giving to charity.

Leave us alone. Provide the relevant information where we can easily find it, along with the means to act and let us get on with making our own decisions. Is that too much to ask?

1 –  Yes
2 –  No
3 –  I prefer not to answer that question right now.

———————————-

Update: I’ve finally come to a personal decision on this matter. My SOS Talisman states that I am prepared to donate my organs in the event of them being usable should I die prematurely. I have no intention of changing this. Also, my nearest and dearest are aware that I am prepared to donate. My erstwhile ambivalence about putting my name on the organ donor register has hardened. I am not, while I am alive, prepared to do this. Not because I do not want to donate – as stated, I am happy to do so – but because I am sick to the back teeth of this nagging and political manipulation. I should be able to say “no” if I wish –  so “no” it is.

10 Comments

  1. from July they will have to indicate one of the following: yes I would like register on the NHS Organ Donor Register; I do not want to answer this question now; or I am already registered on the NHS Organ Donor Register.

    How come there’s not a “no” option? I mean, I can understand the reason for the “I’d prefer not to answer,” out of sensitivity and all, but why isn’t there a “no” for the people who don’t care how they might appear if they don’t want to register?

    Has it just been a tick-box up to now, or what? Because it seems really sinister, in fact, to make a compulsory question with multiple answers, one of which is “yes,” but none of which is “no.”

  2. Lovely bit of manipulative language there: ‘yes, i want to register’, ‘no i have already registered’, and ‘no, I don’t want to register right now’ – with the implication that I will register in due course. subtext: you’ve done it, you’ll do it now, or you’ll do it later. Another example of the ‘nudge’ in operation?

    Agree 100% with your position here. I demand “fuck off and mind you own business” as an option for all state forms. Perhaps I will start a petition on the new direct.gov site.

  3. Bella is right – that is really sinister. As a never-driver I am exempt from this logical cul-de-sac (I must be immortal) but I would (as I have done with other intrusive questions on other forms) add my own No box and tick that – stuffs up their procedures no end, I believe.

  4. I, too, find the lack of a “no” option sinister. There are people for whom “no” is the only ethical option for whatever reason – and it is for no one else to judge those reasons, frankly.

    Personally, I have no principled objection to organ donation but with the increased nagging (and the deeply unethical push for presumed consent), that is starting to change. Indeed, I notice that on various discussions of this and the charity nudge, people are beginning to express the same reaction – “I did once agree, but the more you cajole me, the more inclined I am to refuse.”

    If this goes on much more, “no” will be my one emphatic reaction rather than the current ambivalent one. And, no, I won’t apologise for it, either.

  5. Perhaps the Government could enclose a similar question with Civil-Service pay-slips?

  6. So the new Labour hectoring has become tory nudging. Two names for one thing. Both guaranteed to get the backs up of anyone with an IQ in double figures. The people who devise this type of thing really do live in cloud cuckoo land.

    I’ve had an organ donor card since being 18. I’d send it back in protest if it would do any good, but sadly it won’t.

  7. I am an Insulin injecting type 2 diabetic, as far as I am aware the NHS do not want my organs, I am not unique in having this condition and there are many more people with other medical conditions whos organs the NHS wont accept. Another case of beyond belief stupidity that is political correctness driven by authoritarianism.

  8. Well, as I’ve said before when this topic has come up, I’m one person awaiting a transplant who agrees with you entirely. A bit of advertising and highlighting the benefits of donation is one thing but the increasing level of hectoring and attempts to move to presumed consent are wrong.

    As others have already said, the lack of a ‘no’ option in this is just bizarre, but can only be taken as an unsubtle attempt to make people feel guilty, that no decent, right-thinking person would ever say no, and so there’s no need for the option. Pathetic, and likely to have the opposite effect on a large number of people.

Comments are closed.