Well, I’ll be! I’ve never heard a believer, especially one concerned with social justice, be this dumb and this petulant. I’m referring to Kristel Clayville, who wrote a new piece at Religion Dispatches, “Why I’m not an organ donor“. First, let’s establish that Clayville is indeed a Christian; her bio says this:
Kristel Clayville is a visiting assistant professor of religion at Eureka College and a fellow at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago. She is also ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
The University of Chicago? That’s my school, and she apparently got her Ph.D in the Divinity School here. And indeed, she is at the MacLean Center for Medical Ethics at the U of C. But her article is an embarrassment to herself, to my University, and to the faith she purports to hold. Her Eureka College biography also notes that Clayville is “an ordained minister in the Disciples of Christ tradition.” (Eureka College is a Christian school in Eureka, Illinois.)
So why isn’t Dr. Clayville an organ donor? In short, because she says the organ donation system is biased towards the wealthy, the well connected, and the educated. And the system is subjective. So she’d rather let people die than save someone’s life who might be in one of those groups.
Of course Clayville realizes that such a stand doesn’t look that good, so she defuses her opponents by going on the offensive
I anticipate some of you saying, “But I thought you were a good person. I thought you cared about people.” And of course you will say this with a perplexed look that suggests you don’t know how I could be so callous, or even worse: anti-science. I know this look well because I’ve been the recipient of it before, usually across a dinner table with my progressive, liberal, overeducated, friends (PLOFs) who suddenly wonder whether they’ve misjudged my character for years.
I’ll leave aside the snarky term “overeducated” (is it possible for someone who likes to learn to be “overeducated”?), and go to her argument, which hinges on “social justice”:
Being an organ donor doesn’t just potentially save someone’s life. You can focus on that aspect of it—and maybe you should—but there are significant social justice issues involved that aren’t apparent on the surface. Among them is distribution—or what the transplant community refers to as allocation. Most of us are aware that there’s an organ shortage, but then who gets a transplant and who doesn’t? And who decides?
. . . But these financial issues obscure a larger problem: to get an organ transplant in the US, you are subjected to medical and social review by a transplant team. This multidisciplinary team consists of surgeons, organ specialists, social workers, nurses, psychiatrists, hospital administrators, and sometimes a chaplain. The medical criteria for getting an organ can be thought of as objective, though also relative to the skills of the local transplant surgeons and the level of risk they’re willing to take. The social review by the team is highly subjective, even in the best scenarios. Since donated organs are a scarce resource, the goal is often to find the best host (recipient) for the organ so that it does not go to waste.
In that environment, organs tend to go to people who can have a full-time caregiver, has family who will help with care, doesn’t take personal risks, and has a medical history of doing what doctors tell them to do. All of these fuzzy criteria require that there is someone on the transplant team who recognizes a potential patient’s behavior as understandable and relatable. Ultimately, these criteria become ciphers for minority status and financial means. Can your spouse take months off of work to take care of you? Mine can’t. Can you afford to pay an in-home caregiver? I can’t.
So the telescopic story is one of free resources and the skills of highly-trained professionals (skills gained with tax-payer subsidies) helping the well-insured and financially well-off overcome diseases and extend their lives, while medically qualified candidates without financial and social means run out of options. From a social justice perspective, this story mirrors the story of the United States in general: most of the resources flow up to the haves rather than trickle down to have-nots.
According to an AP report, “Wealthy people are more likely to get on multiple waiting lists and score a transplant, and less likely to die while waiting for one, a new study finds.” Getting put on multiple transplant lists is not the only way that the haves can get ahead in the current system; they can also move to regions where the organ shortage is not as severe. Doing so can shave years off the waiting time.
Yes, I’m sure there are inequities in the system, and wealthier or savvier people may have a better chance of getting organs. But those who get donations aren’t all that way: I’ve seen enough poor and marginalized people on the news getting a lease on life through new organs to know that the poor do benefit from this system. Yes, it’s subjective, as Clayville says, but it has to be; after all, beyond the medical considerations you’re judging the value of a present and future life, and there’s no objective way to do that. But are these reasons to diss the whole system, one that involves other chaplains, social workers, psychiatrists, and so on?
Apparently so. Because of these inequities, and the “subjectivity” aspect, Clayville will simply keep her own organs after she dies, thank you. (Perhaps she wants to meet Jesus with an intact liver.) But have a gander at her conclusion, which is about as selfish and mean-spirited as one can get. In short it says this: “Because the system isn’t perfect, I’d rather keep my organs and let people die.” In other words, she’s letting people die out of simple spite (my emphasis):
Should you be an organ donor? It’s not mine to say. Organ donation saves lives; it really does. And the professionals involved in organ transplantation are well aware of the social justice issues. Many are working on reforms. In the interim, you get to decide which story you want to be a character in: the microscopic version where you are an organ donor to a particular person in need, or the telescopic version where your organ becomes a resource in an economy that privileges those with financial means.
To return to AJ’s case, it seems that he and his father had been put on the back burner by the transplant team for social reasons. Though the organ wasn’t a scarce resource—it was donated to AJ specifically—their social situation wasn’t recognizable to the team as “normal.” AJ only received the transplant after a significant public outcry. Given that these are the fuzzy social criteria in play, until there’s a significantly revised system of review of transplant candidates I’m keeping my PLOF-y organs.
This is the epitome of social justice gone wrong: because the system isn’t perfect, Clayville prefers to subvert it by withholding potentially lifesaving organs. What kind of Christian is she? When she meets Jesus, will she explain, “Lord, I thought it was better to let someone die than to tolerate the injustices of organ donation”?
h/t: Diane G
Very, very sad to be that PIG HEADED and STUPID! ☹️
Pig-headed and Dumb: PhD.
At least no poor unfortunate will live to get her brain, even though its virtually unused!
Agreed. Some diplomas aren’t worth the paper…(e.g. Dr. Bill Cosby?? honorary, but still). This Clayville gal obviously has a Pretentiously hyped Declaration.
Maybe she’s just over-educated? /s
Sounds like she was pretty interested in coming up with an excuse for not wanting to donate her organs. It sort of reminds me of the non-gaycake-baking bakers… in that they could not bake the gay cake if they wanted (with no repercussions), but they insist on telling us that it is because they want to be discriminatory. She could not-donate her organs and no one would give a shit, but she is intent on making a point about it.
If I had to make one stipulation as an organ donor it would only be that my organs go to another organ donor.
You shouldn’t benefit from a system you won’t contribute to if you can.
There is something in that. Although I doubt it would be really ethical, it appears to have some justice to it.
Well, isn’t she special and privileged.
Just as she likes it.
Glen Davidson
Yes.
I assume she’s also on board with Trump and the Republicans gutting natural resources and parks, since the marginalized poor are less likely to consume or go camping.
She is playing god, deciding, indirectly, who lives, who dies. There’s a theist for you-
hubris personified.
Which is ironic as Jesus was an organ and blood donor, symbolically at least. Isn’t that what communion is about?
Symbolic? Thanks to transubstantiation, us Catholics got to chow down on the real deal.
I guess she also refuses to go to doctors or hospitals since surveys show that the well to do get much better health care as well. And of course she would only consider driving a cheap used care to get around. Probably lives in a tent in a poor neighborhood?
I liked the tent part. It made me LOL.
She must be an American, as the rest of the world well off enough for organ transplants has socialized medicine so while there is still a review of the recipients, their wealth doesn’t enter into the equation.
I find it sad that the country that put multiple men on the moon, had a President progressive enough to do the “New Deal” now has regressed into bizarre cult of Capitalism on one side, and a cult of Post Modern gibberish on the other.
Please, America, regain your senses – elect some more good people, move forward, and put your wealth and talent towards something more than the best military machine on the planet.
I do not think things are so bleak. Poor undocumented immigrant Jesica Santillan got an organ transplant. It is another matter that it went horribly wrong.
You can get some strange reasons for objecting to transplants. I recall years ago reading a newspaper article by someone who loathed the idea of heart transplants. His objection was that we are not simply cold emotionless brains, but that we have emotions and feelings, and that these were located in the heart. So heart transplants treat our emotions as being of no importance.
Mind you, this was in the early days of heart transplants. I doubt that anyone would argue that today.
Instead, such people are more likely to fawn over apocryphal or highly suspect stories of transplant recipients who start exhibiting personality traits of the donor.
Supposing that privileged people are preferred I would think that if fewer organs are donated the poor people’s probability of getting a one are further reduced.
Excellent point. How is this different from a person being against a social safety net because someone, somewhere might be taking advantage of it?
Excellent point (and a nice pointer to HL Mencken) 🙂
Ironically, I *have* heard that excuse – from future Canadian medical students no less.
She a great lover of humanity.
People, not so much.
Glen Davidson
Well, isn’t this a wonderfully vile and disgusting new version of intersectionality! Regressive leftism meets religion, a match made in an ignorant and hateful heaven! And it resembles the republican views on health care as well: the system isn’t perfect, so let’s just destroy the whole damn thing.
What we really need is to go to a system where a person must opt OUT of organ donation, rather than opt IN. Perhaps if there were not so many useful organs getting chucked into the ground or cremated, there would be more people, poor people, non-Euro American people, who could receive their much-needed transplants, or perhaps if a non-PoC organ went into a PoC body that would be considered a form of organ colonialism and this SJW would still refuse to save a life.
What an asshole.
“What we really need is to go to a system where a person must opt OUT of organ donation, rather than opt IN.”
Exactly!
Yes, excellent idea.
It would dramatically increase the supply of transplants, since the default position would change from not-being-a-donor to being-a-donor. I suspect a lot of people don’t feel particularly strongly either way, but don’t want to raise the subject of their own mortality by registering, or they may feel it’s an implied affront to their loved ones to do so.
cr
That’s apparently what the evidence suggests (opt-out policies produce more available organs).
In Spain everybody is registerd for organ donation unless one opts out.
In Belgium too. there is a central register where you can register to opt out.
Nobody ever gonna ask Kristel to donate her brain. (Chrissake, unless she dances the hoochie-coochie, she’s not even spelling her own first name right.)
That’s actually something I’ve thought about, donating my brain to science. I know it can be done, not sure how, but it does appeal to me.
If I have any salvageable bits, dole ’em out to those in need, shuck my brain and slice it up for science, then toss the husk of me remainder somewhere to feed the birds, worms, and whatnot. Actually, I’d love to be dumped in a deep sea trench somewhere, so my remains could be recycled into osedax worms and the like. A feast for the wee beasties would be an honorable way to go.
*Googles osedax* Well worth it!
http://www.deepseanews.com/2013/05/10-reasons-why-bone-eating-worms-are-fn-awesome/
Thanks!
You’re only “overeducated” if you are not a well-rounded personality and elitist about your education.
I once worked at a small high-tech firm (in the early 1980s). Two of the employees were opera lovers, one of them me. The other one was generally snooty and disdainful towards blue-collar workers, whom I played cards with every lunch date. We both liked opera, but I was also a huge fan of the Bugs Bunny opera parody “What’s Opera, Doc?” which I also thoroughly enjoyed. I respectfully submit that she was “over-educated” and I am not.
IN other news, in 2014 the Vatican launched a large campaign to encourage organ donation.
Nothing you’ve described sounds like a symptom of having too much education. Sounds to me like the appropriate word there is simply “snob”.
I am suggesting that for all practical purposes, “overeducated” is used as a synonym for elitist attitudes.
Very noblesse oblige of you, old boy. Do hope you didn’t query whether they knew “Quadrille” or “Whist,” the card games separating the idle rich like Darcy from the strivers like Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice.
I kid! 🙂
Yet, isn’t Whist played a few generations later by the petty thieves in _Oliver Twist_?
The regressive left insist that SJWs don’t exist, and it is just a “snarl term” aimed at people who genuinely care for “social justice”.
That is bollocks, of course, and this woman’s attitude is another great example of how SJWs are actually awful human beings who make the world a much nastier and depressing place. Just like their counterparts on the far right.
As I understand it, the term for SJW actually originated as a snarl term about this variety of person. Only the term stuck and has been used as well by SJWs. One supposes that they are a somewhat diverse bunch (all groups really are), so maybe some refuse to identify themselves under it.
I for one even donate to an organization with “Social Justice” in the name, and it has nothing to do with these buffoons …
I can’t get past an alleged academic denigrating people for having too much education.
I’m impressed that she has managed to find the Goldilocks zone of education, not too educated, not too uneducated, but just right!
I’ll bet that republicans are like momma bear, with under-educated brains that are too small, and many of us here are over-educated classical liberals that have brains that are too large, and there she is, having found a perfect baby bear brain of Just Right!
Then again, considering her stance here, she may just have porridge for brains.
Quite the Grimm scenario.
😜 Good one.
Lol @ both Christopher and grasshopper! 😀
Well, maybe a Southey scenario.
Doesn’t work as well, but Goldilocks isn’t a Grimm tale.
Glen Davidson
Like the “porridge for brains” – from the commenter formerly known as “HaggisForBrains”.
Yes! WTF is the definition of overeducated? If her friends’ over-education leads them to look at ger in horror because she’d rather let someone die than be an organ donor, I say bring it on. Of course, the trouble with that argument is all the poorly educated people who are, I’ve no doubt, equally disgusted with her attitude.
I think she’s scared that if she has bits missing she won’t be allowed into heaven. Or maybe it’s the idea of being cut up after she dies. However, if she dies at an age and condition that her organs would be good for transplant, chances are there’d be a post-mortem anyway.
Rather than admit to an irrational superstition, she’s trying to find another justification for her selfishness. If God is real, I would hope he’d deny her access to heaven. What if the rich people she could be saving are those who give so much money to keep the myth alive? Without them, superstition would die a faster death. God won’t be happy with her then.
It sounds like a Twilight Zone episode. I can already here Rod Searling narrating the conclusion as she stands at heaven’s closed pearly gates, looking perplexed.
Ha! Good one!
Well in my opinion she is undereducated, after all what actually defines a PhD in divinity (superstition.)
😻
Good point!
IMO Religious Studies is a valid field of study. Theology is not. I’m not that clear where Divinity falls. Correct me if I’m wrong, but a PhD in Divinity seems to be designed for ministers, pastors, priests etc to be able to say to parishioners that they have a PhD, and therefore come across as An Authority On All Things Who Must Be Listened To At All Times. They’re creating a source for the Appeal to Authority argument.
Doesn’t Professor Trelawney have a PhD in Divinity?
Ha ha!
I don’t know actually. We know there are jobs that require a lot of further study after NEWTs, like healer and auror, but we’re never told where that study takes place afair.
Apparently you can’t tell from a simple PhD from the Divinity School. You can choose between 11 areas of study from History of Religion to Theology. But here’s a quote from their page: “PhD students also must pursue substantial work in at least one other area of study to prepare broadly for their future careers as educators or in other professions and to locate their research in contexts outside of, but relevant to, their own concentration.”
Source: divinity.uchicago.edu/doctoral-program
Maybe that counts as a negative number of years? 😉
Couldn’t Dr. Clayville execute a codicil providing that her organs go to “the deserving poor” (you know, the same way rich Republicans give money to charity)?
Is this actually possible? The laws regarding to whom and how organs are transferred are pretty strict.
Dafuq do I know about wills & trusts? 🙂
Biiitch, I don’t know what law you be doin.
Are you sarcastically saying, “how should I know? This isn’t my area of expertise,” or are you saying, “obviously you can execute such a codicil. Estate law is what I do, so you best get out my grille, muhfucka”?
It was a reach for me to remember “codicil.”
I seem to remember that in the US one can *sell* organs, so I imagine it should be straightforward to will them to someone.
People also do will whole cadavers to medical school anatomy departments, etc.
It’s just another case of “if you decide that I didn’t make it safely to base, I’ll take my ball and go home.”
The system can agree with her and change immediately, or she’ll let people die. Ha, it’s their fault, they won’t play fair.
Glen Davidson
I worked with the transplant system for 25 years and am married to someone who continues to work within that system. Organs go to recipients based on physiologic, not economic status. Ensuring this was the big reason that the federal government stepped in years ago to pay for kidney transplants.
Another fine example of the differences among religion, morals and ethics.
I suspect that her “facts” are made up. The whole argument is fallacious. She’s basically fake news and dangerous too because people may listen to her and refuse to donate organs. She’s like the people howling not to donate to cancer research because it is just to make money as the researches already have a cure but they aren’t sharing it because chemo is making them rich.
At least she didn’t manage to come up with some scenario in which organ transplantation is misogynist. (I probably shouldn’t be giving her ideas, though.)
You’re making me want to satirically write that article. Also, look how I knowingly used a split infinitive….I did it knowingly because I’m over educated.
You’d be the one to do it. 😉
To knowingly split an infinitive – that is the height of modern grammar education 😉
I see what you did there!
Organs go to recipients based on physiologic, not economic status.
I’m a double lung transplant recipient and I can attest to this.
In regard to carers. A carer throughout the process significantly increases likelihood of successful outcomes. In very many cases it is essential. The data exists.
Better for this odious woman to focus her attention on reforming the USA’s appalling insurance based health system in general, as it is the greater villain in the denial of treatment.
I know I would be dead if I had lived in The USA instead of New Zealand. In NZ we enjoy a single payer public heath system.
I do not see any reason to think that you would be dead if you lived in the USA.
Yeah, I’m sure the rich and powerful will have a harder time finding a donor without her help.
Honestly, I think we have a working definition for over-educated. All that learning, but too lazy to use it.
She should look at it this way: if she’s a match for a zillionaire like Mark Zukerberg her donation might save some poor schnook from getting burked …
Its a bit like a homophobe saying he won’t donate his hands because every time the other guy goes for a pee he’ll have to touch his penis.
How did she get a PhD with such crappy logic?
There are two ways to make sure poor people get access to donated organs.
1. Increase the number of organ donors.
2. Reform the health system so wealth isn’t a factor.
Like most countries, NZ doesn’t have enough organ donors, but the decision on who gets them are on entirely clinical grounds. That’s because the health system provides care for organ recipients.
How about she looks into the medical ethics of a healthcare system that means the US has the worst maternal and neo-natal survival rate in the developed world, and worse even than some countries outside that group. Imo she’s a disgrace to medical ethics.
Her PhD is from the Divinity School. No logic or reason required.
Good point!
Indeed, logic is an impediment.
She doesn’t want to look into health ethics of a for-profit system because she is an elitist and it’s so much easier to justify your elitism and your selfishness by railing against something that isn’t really an issue.
Yep. Imo, most people who are religious, and I think it’s especially likely if they’re religious leaders like her, are elitist. They think their channel to Jesus/God/whatever makes them special/better.
I have to disagree there. I think this is one of the (possibly unusual) cases where religion can’t be blamed for this woman, since her stance doesn’t appear to be religion-influenced. She could be an atheist and equally malignant.
(So far as I can tell, most religions seem to be neutral on transplants. A very few may believe the entire body gets raptured so it’s important to keep all your bits, but there are obvious problems with that approach).
cr
She has a PhD in Divinity, mate, and she went to a theological college. I’m going to assume she’s religion influenced, though I admit that could be wrong.
It is true that she could be an atheist and equally malignant. However, I suspect that her opinion is influenced by religion, and what she really thinks is that we should not intervene to save people whom God has ordered to die.
The same way, every time believers make noisy campaigns against abortion of fetuses with Down syndrome and other disabilities, I suspect that their main wish is to deflect the question why God allows these disorders in the first place.
No different from the US transplant system. Transplantation has been nationalized in the USA for decades. Trauma and medical services are completely separated from donation services so there are no financial incentives to the acute care side to advocate for donation. Federal law requires that donation requesters be trained and not associated with acute care. Donation services do not actively participate in care decisions until a patient is brain dead and donation is requested. Donor families do not incur any costs associated with donation once a patient is declared brain dead.
Today, some patients not meeting brain death criteria but with non-survivable injury or illness may also be candidates for Donation after cardiac death (DCD).
Gaming the system is even hard for the wealthy since now most transplantable organs can be maintained for longer periods than ever before and are entered into a national system purely based on clinical status.
In my experience, refusals to donate were 100% due to either a family being overwhelmed by the pace of an illness or injury, a poor requester, or most often religion.
Most important ways to ensure that you would be a donor if it ever came to that: Tell your family your wishes, register as a donor on your state’s donor registry.
Thanks for this. I saw your other comment on this after I’d made this comment. It’s great that the US has sorted itself out re organ donations, and it sounds really good.
And, it means that not only is her logic screwed, but she talking from a position of ignorance. Her complaint is simply invalid. You’d think if she was writing about medical ethics in relation to organ donation, she’d find out what the actual situation is!
Why not go one stage further, and donate a kidney now, and save someone’s life while you are still alive to see the results?
Give a Kidney – One’s Enough
Donors are advised to limit their protein intake, which clearly indicates that they are considered at risk. And this is for a reason. Slinin et al. Transplantation. 2016 Jun;100(6):1371-1386 state that “Moderate grade evidence reveals an association between living kidney donation and greater risk of end-stage renal disease… Consistent evidence from 3 studies reveals that donors are at higher risk for preeclampsia and gestational hypertension with postdonation pregnancies and compared with healthy matched nondonors.”
In light of this, I do not think that one kidney is “enough”. I think there must be strict guidelines for live kidney donors and donation should be limited to parents and maybe siblings and spouses.
but the decision on who gets them are on entirely clinical grounds.
In NZ you won’t get certain transplants (lung, heart, liver and perhaps others) without a full time carer with you throughout the process, which can often take up to three months of full time care.
Thanks for the info. I thought the care was available in needed. I know of single people who moved into what are normally rest homes because that was the only way to get 24 hour care, but that was subsidized. I’m extremely disappointed if there are cases of people missing out on a transplant for non-clinical reasons. (It’s a long time since I worked in the health system, so some of my knowledge will obviously be out of date.)
It’s moot as to whether engaging a carer is “non-clinical” in nature.
It’s part of the care process, just as nursing and the surgery is.
Clayville’s seeming insinuation is that the requirement shouldn’t exist or should be waived. That’s absurd, for good “clinical” outcomes.
Her only justifiable beef can be in regard to the source of funding for this care.
It’s a hard call, even for public health services. I was informed last week that NZ’s Heart Lung transplant team performed about twice as many transplants last year over the number were funded for. Given current restraints funding full-time carers would be prohibitive, yet they are required.
Yes, they are necessary. I wasn’t saying otherwise. It would be pointless to do a transplant if the patient won’t get the appropriate aftercare. I meant that care should be part of the process, which it seems to be in the US from Pliny’s comments.
Here, funding full time carers wouldn’t be necessary for everybody. Some can be looked after by family members most of the time, and some can’t. Any discharge from hospital takes into account what situation the patient is going to, and the hospital sends a referral for home help for those who will need it – usually those living alone. GPs can also do that if the requirement arises later. That home help is publicly funded. 24 hour care is obviously a lot more expensive, but there are options. Sometimes it depends on which DHB you’re located in though, and it may be different in other places. I know about Waikato. Some others may have different arrangements, and I know some are pretty mean with home help provision, so that may be a problem elsewhere too.
Well, she makes about as good a case as one can for a rotten-to-the-core point of view, but that does not transform her turd of an opinion into a delicacy. Yes, the criteria for short-listing organ donors winds up favoring the well-off, but even among those there are children and mothers and fathers.
So pooey on her.
I think her position is known as ‘pissing in the soup’. 😉
cr
Ah the perfect solution fallacy. The organ donation process is not perfect so therefore I will not donate my organs. She does recognize she is one of these elite over educated people, right? I hope she knows that should the time come, she should properly refuse an organ donated to her.
Also, why should a chaplain sit on an organ donation panel? Would the person’s beliefs play into whether they get the organ? How is a Chaplin qualified to make ethical decisions?
When I read that part it sent me a shiver of panic, can they refuse to give an organ to an otherwise deserving Atheist?
Why would religion matter at all, why give religion a vote on this?
Is there a way to change that?
Indeed. I know it was paranoia on my part, and I live in Canada where religion isn’t what it is in the US, but I was getting an operation in a Catholic hospital so when the form asked what religion I was, I just left it blank. Normally, I’d write “atheist” to have atheists counted for things, but I didn’t want to take a chance.
I suppose their idea is to know what priest to call in case they botch the operation.
Generally, people who are strongly for one faith aren’t accepted as or are removed as chaplins in such situations. Some (e.g. many Unitarian chaplins) are essentially atheist anyway. In this context, I’d view a chaplin as an ethicist, not a person weeding out recipients by cult membership.
But what are the credentials for the chaplain acting as ethicist? Secular ethicists have to have specific philosophical training. And this specific chaplain seems to lack the careful thinking required of secular ethicists.
Once you hear someone use the word “overeducated” you can pretty much stop listening. The mistrust of the intellect, of expertise, that it betrays is a giveaway of a small-minded and, it seems, rather vicious outlook.
Quite! I came across this Big Think video of Salman Rushdie that summarizes this shit attitude well. I hope I linked it properly. I am on my iPhone & my HTML seems to be suspect when I try to type it on an iPhone keyboard.
That’a a bad link Diana [extra characters at the right end that break it]. It’s a jolly good Rushdie video & here’s a working link for those interested:
Anti-Intellectual Elite Turning the World Upside Down
Thanks again Michael. I don’t know what my phone does. I double check the HTML and it never works from my phone. I think autocorrect is doing something.
The extra characters you are getting to the right of the url are %E2%80%9D which is the UTF-8 encoding [hex.] for the unicode character representing the RIGHT CURLY double quotation mark. What you want is the STRAIGHT double quotation mark [which looks the same for both left & right double quotation marks].
The ” mark is part of the html used to make a pretty link in WordPress:
LINK NAME HERE
I am wondering if you are using the wrong type of double quotation mark on your dog? Or your dog has a conflict with the way it uses UTF-8?
If none of that helps you could try just pasting the bare address without using the html to make a pretty, named link
To further confuse matters I notice that WordPress automatically turns straight quotes into curly quotes! So if I type:
He said “hello”
with straight quotes they post as curly
They look straight to me!
Well they’re curly in the sense that the published opening double quote in “hello” leans to the left & the published closing leans to the right even though when I typed them both quote marks appear in the comment box the same [straight, vertical, no lean]
I see, thanks.
Must be my iPhone doing that quote thing. Stupid technology.
It’s not stupid, it’s over-educated.
😎
cr
🤪
Yes!
Why would she be so persnickety about who might get to use her organs after she no longer needs them? I guess she could specify her dictates in a will. But, the whole deal is a crap shoot. Maybe she dies of something that makes her organs unusable, or maybe she dies somewhere that prevents her organs from being harvested in a timely manner. Maybe her organs won’t be usable. Maybe a poor person gets one of her organs, but dies shortly thereafter. Maybe, part of her organs go to the rich and part to the poor. Maybe, her organ(s) give someone a longer life who benefits humanity, whether rich or poor.
She’s undereducated in the proper use of commas.
Not to mention tense.
“In that environment, organs tend to go to people who can have a full-time caregiver, has family who will help with care, doesn’t take personal risks, and has a medical history of doing what doctors tell them to do. “
It sounds like just another instance of the Authoritarian Left’s thesis that a person or an institution must be 100% virtuous or they want no part of it, presented as a form of protest. She’s not an organ donor so she can maintain her hatred of institutions and write about it.
This is BS, if more people donate then more people get organs and the field opens up wider for being accepted as a candidate for an organ.
People like her are the reason for the subjective decisions, because there are not enough to go around. If everyone donated there would be an abundance and no one would have to be refused for lack of availability
So much for the generous nature of theists.
Yes, but if NO ONE donates, then all would-be recipients will be treated equally, regardless of socio-economic level, race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual identity/orientation, etc. True justice will have been achieved!
Over-educated: adj, person who understands that the dog in the manger is not supposed to be a role model.
Reblogged this on The Logical Place.
I’m amazed she failed to see the flaw in her logic whilst writing that sentence down. Organs are scarce, so only privileged people get them, so she’s going to protest by doing her bit to keep organs scarce.
THE HYPOCRISY [or is it conflict of interest? or both?] OF KRISTEL CLAYVILLE:
QUOTE:
SOURCE
Clinical Experience
CPE Residency, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, 2015 – 2016.
** Member of the Medical Ethics Committee for the hospital
** Member of the Palliative Care team
Chaplain for Transplant patients
** Various ethics presentations to chaplains, medical students, and medical fellows
SOURCE: HER CV
Well, that was an eye-opener. So I checked one of Jerry’s links and found this:
One wonders if she’s the only one of the Ethics Fellowship group who feels this way or whether she’s expressing a group conclusion; one that might then be taught to others?
https://macleanethics.uchicago.edu/fellowship/current/
After looking at her many social media outlets – she doesn’t notice that she herself is the enemy that she despises.
And she is ‘picky’ about her causes so as to least discomfort herself:
The ‘out’ lesbian Christian not making waves
The anti-capitalist with a range of decently paid gigs not making waves
Smug & fatuous
I think her stated attitude has to be a conflict of interest to the ethics board because how is it ethical or demonstrative of the kind of careful thinking required of ethics. I wonder if there is a bona fide ethicist ok that hospital board.
Nice, succinct characterization.
Why are these people always so full of themselves?! (rhetorical question)
Since I hate privileged people, I will do my best to harm them, no matter how many underprivileged get harmed along the way! Kinda defeats the whole point of social justice, doesn’t it?
And “overeducated”? I’m tempted to dismiss any argument that uses that word.
What an utter pillock!
“I’m going to behave like a selfish asshole because, just possibly, somebody I disapprove of might benefit”.
This is an argument for never, ever doing anything good, or altruistic, or worthwhile, or beneficial to society.
I suggest she stops paying taxes because, inevitably, some unworthy person somewhere will benefit from some portion of her tax money. I suggest that with infinite malice, knowing exactly how far that argument will get her with the IRS…
cr
The ultimate, one day she, or someone close in her circle of kin and friends may need an organ, will she refuse the organ for herself? discourage someone close from excepting a donated organ?
The ultimate, one day she, or someone close in her circle of kin and friends may need an organ, will she refuse the organ for herself? discourage someone close from excepting a donated organ?
I remember hearing about the Israeli approach to organ transplants and organ donations. A person who needs a transplant will be given priority if they have already become an organ donor themselves.
I found this link/explanation in The New York Times.
A neat way of increasing the availability of donor organs are laws which stipulate that if you really don’t want your organs touched after death, then you must sign a form saying so at the time of your driving licence renewal. It has been found that many people can’t be bothered with the extra paperwork, so they default to becoming donors.
P.S. This didn’t post the first time .. double post danger.
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I admit I am the opposite case: while I am a potential bone marrow donor, I haven’t registered myself as a potential organ donor because the associated paperwork is too much for me. I hope they will just change the rules to default donation. My doctor with whom I discussed the procedure told me that I am his only patient to ask this question. We concluded that people do not mind to donate but shun the thought of their imminent death; we know of course that we are mortal, but do not fully come to term with this knowledge.
I left off the link to the NYT article. Here ’tis.
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/in-israel-a-new-approach-to-organ-donation/
The Eureka College Red Devils! Really!?
Once again, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
More religion based insanity. Why withhold permission for organ donation? Neither you nor your healthy relatives will have any use for them, but they could save a few lives. What the fuck is wrong with these assholes???
Some of us still believe that organ transplantation is an abomination that wholly and completely violates the Will of God, regardless of any other motivations.
Hmm – I assume that you also don’t eat shellfish, rabbit or pork and don’t wear mixed fabrics, etc., which are also abominations and in violation of the Will of God, eh?
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…and the “some” (of us).
Spock- Cosmic mouth piece of god.
Shubel < the caring vulture:
https://flic.kr/p/24Lc5DR
What about treatment for cancer treatment or any deadly disease? For that matter, wouldn’t any life saving treatment also violate the Will of God?
Where do you draw the line and why?
What about treatment for cancer
treatment……I need to proofread. 🙁
I’m sure you can get treatment for that trait.
I’m interested in your rationale for that belief. Is it supported by scripture? If so, which one(s)?
I’d like to know that too. Why do you believe that?
It’s definitely not in the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (SBUHMB).
How weak your god is. Is this the sum of your hate?
I’d be interested in hearing your theological support for that position. What scripture or set of arguments leads to this conclusion?
Oh, ook! Tumbleweed!
The other iconic invasive species of western movies.
[Cues up for the proofreading treatment. Wire brush and Dettol?]
I thought “ook” was most evocative.
At least one Librarian would agree. Ook!
My mother also thinks it’s a bad idea….people will be missing organs when the dead rise at the Second Coming. That’s why she told my father that she wouldn’t allow him to be cremated.
>>she wouldn’t allow him to be cremated.
Good. No Hindus will arise from dead at the Second Coming
You know, that thing about the dead rising again, resurrected but not re-incarnated (ie, in the body they died in, not a recreation of their body in life) is peculiar when you think about it. For a religion that originated in warm climates, if not hot, I’m sure they knew what happened to bodies in the ground, pretty damned quick. (In temperate to cool northern climes bodies can last a lot longer in the ground.) So where did this idea of the bodies rising from the grave come from?
It smells to me a bit of the Egyptian idea derived from natural mummification. Before they got onto that mucking about with the canopic jars and the evisceration and de-braining.
One for the comparative religionists.