At last, a sensible proposal to save thousands of lives. It will be too late for my relative, who has been waiting for a transplant for 5 years and is now too ill to have one as he has become too weak to stand an operation. It's a scandal that organs that could save lives are being buried or burnt. If this had been proposed five years ago my relative might have a long healthy life ahead of him, instead he's had five years of suffering.

brokenhearted, Liverpool,

So have all of you who want to be asked - have you signed up yet? I am asking you now. I spent 3 years on dialysis waiting for a call and didnt get one. 3 months ago my half brother gave me one of his kidneys. It has transformed my life. He had the courage to be a living donor. Do you have the courage to leave a lasting and precious legacy by signing onto www.uktransplant.org.uk. There were only 780 deceased donors last year. Yet so many more patients could be helped if organs were donated. We have been begging for our lives which are in the hands of people who dont get around to declaring their wishes and signing up. So many of us have died waiting. A "soft" presumed consent as described by the CMO is one route forward.

Helen R, London, UK

How can it be a bad idea? Any person who does not agree with the proposal can take their name of the list.

People who disagree why not ask yourself, if I or a member of my family a child etc became sick and needed a transplant would I put myself on the donor list? If you would the way things are now you would only have a 50% chance of receiving the transplant, and you would die waiting.

And how can people say their organs fail because of their own health choices? I was born with cystic fibrosis and will die of cystic fibrosis unless I get a lung transplant, the only thing whcih can save my life. I didnt ask for this condition, and I wish their were another way but I am only 21 and I would like to live a longer life, one without being in hospital or on constant medication. I guess I share a different view to others who take their lives for granted but I would want my organs (the ones that still work) to save another life like mine when i die.

Anonomous, Northamptonshire,

i welcome Sir Liam Donaldsons comments today and may i say its been a long time coming. I have been a renal patient for some thirty years and unless people have gone through what i have they really wont understand why its so important that we in the UK opt for what Sir Liam's saying. I dialyse twice a week on a kidney machine with nurse suppo again unless people have experienced the pain, anguish and family problems that goes with it they wont understand. I believe the shortage of organs has to include an educational aspect let people see what dialysis is all about and other medical problems this presents us with then they will have a better awareness of the many side effects, such as oesteroporosis, heart problems, hair loss, headaches, haemoraging, sickness, cancers that we suffer. Yes i am selfish because i need a kidney and if anyone's spent 30yrs of their life with this terrible decease so would they be. I have also managed to work over those thirty years so have paid my dues.

Lyn Winter, Manchester, Lancs

I am the mother of an 11 year old girl who unfortunately died in 2005 after a tragic accident. She had expressed a wish to her twin brother that she agreed with the idea of organ donation. As a result, her kidneys and heart valves were used after her death. I am so proud of this selfless, kind hearted girl that was my daughter. Three people so far are living happy healthy lives thanks to my daughter's decision. Any discussion re organ donation is a good one and I support it 100%. The problem though I can see with opt out is that even if you wish to donate, you will still have to state which organs can be used. Therefore everybody will have to make time to state their wishes, whether they opt in or out. this I envisage may cause problems as this is a very emotive and personal subject

JK, Plymouth, UK

"" hundreds of people die each year because of shortages of organs. " "No, they die because their own organs fail, probably due to lack of regard for their own health. If people want to smoke, eat bad food, drink or indulge in dangerous activities then don't expect me to bail them out!" - Ben Summers

Wow talk about IGNORANCE! Are you telling me as a person with Cystic Fibrosis that I brought my END STAGE lung failure upon myself Ben???

"lets face it people are born, live, sometimes are sick and inevitively die, so be it." - Pam Austrailia

I guess then, Pam, that you are never going to take a tablet or recieve ANY sort of medical treatment in your life then, since we're all going to die anyway???

Rebee, Dublin,

3 years on list waiting for a kidney to come up and no call. Lucky I wasnt a cystic fibrosis patient because half of them die within 12 months of being put on the waiting list. My half brother gave me a kidney 3 mths ago. It has transformed my life. I feel well now. Instead of feeling ill all the time. There were only approx 780 deceased donors last year. Numbers are falling due to better road safety and prevention of strokes in young people. So you are more likely to need an organ than die being able to donate. If you feel strongly against this proposal then opt out. Even if more people opt out than have opted in we will have been able to increase the number of potential donors. Until a new law is passed please look at www.uktransplant.org.uk to find out how the process works and sign on the organ donor register. A transplant recipient and family will always have you in their thoughts should you sadly become a deceased organ donor.

Helen R, London, UK

My daughter, through no fault of her own or ours, was born with such severe heart abnormalities that the only option available to her after two open heart surgeries was a heart transplant. She is now 7 years old and is enjoying a relatively good quality of life and it is all down to the ultimate gift that a selfless family somewhere in the UK made. For that we will always be eternally grateful. If the situation had been reversed, we would donate - I have been on the register for 20+ years and my family all know my wishes.

I don't know if the opt out system is the way forward and will sit on the fence here. Perhaps more education in schools and changes in the way families are approached when there is no hope for their loved ones? More harm than good could be done by telling people what to do.

All I can say, is that organ donation has given my little girl a quality of life that she has never, ever known.

Bev, Hampshire, UK

The ignorance displayed by some posters on here is utterly phenomonal. If it were your son/ daughter/ etc desperately waiting for the call to say they were going recieve the precious gift of life then you would not be wasting your breath with ill-educated, ill-informed and bigotted opinions. Organ donations are not given to those who abuse their bodies; but are infact more often given to those who are desperate to live but their genetic make-up will not allow this. If you are so very against the idea of living life, then giving life then opt out. That is the whole idea of the system. And until you have been in the situation yourself, please refrain from judging- you can only imagine the pain of knowing your survival relies on someone else dying.

Jessica, Staffordshire,

It’s been distressing reading some comments, a number of which appear flippant & cruel. Nobody knows if they, or a family member will need a transplant in the future, it can happen to ANYONE. Our 6 month old needed a life-saving transplant. It is impossible to describe how it feels to watch the life of someone you love ebbing away as they wait on the Transplant List.

The team looking after our son were extraordinary, their care & devotion was amazing. To suggest that an opt-out system is “'simply the medical profession looking after its own” is beyond belief. It is also incredibly hurtful to read “if some of us did not have our lives prolonged by transplant would it really & truly matter?

Transplants totally transform lives. We fully support an opt-out system to help save more lives in the future. No doubt this debate will go on for many years – in the meantime we hope that anyone who hasn’t signed up to the Donor Register will consider doing so now www.uktransplant.org.uk

Name withheld, Birmingham, UK

don't moan, just opt out, even if you opt out, out of principle of feeling your being forced, but make sure you opt out of receiving it. My wife who has been on the list for 8 months now thanks all those who make the effort or at least put a sensible comment on to message boards like this.
Cystic fibrosis is not from misuse of your body, there are many other illnesses that cause organ failure too. People would do well to remember this.

tez, huddersfield, yorkshire

The Lord giveth, the State taketh away.

Hugh Bonsey, Salisbury, UK

I totally agree with what Liam Donaldson is putting forward. I have met someone who will have to go on to dialysis soon and it has hit me now how important it is for everyone to donate their organs. I have immediately signed the register myself and now feel comfortable to do the same for my children should the dreadful situation arise. The main reason being we would all expect the same if it was us in the alful situation of needing a donor. I hope that the new law is passed.
Rachel, Hampshire

Rachel Barfield, Hampshire, England

I'm currently waiting for a kidney transplant. I'm a 39 year old, otherwise healthy jazz musician, with a great many years of gigs left in me.

There are around 7000 people like me in the UK. I cost the NHS around £30,000 a year to keep me on dialysis. If everyone received a transplant, that would save the NHS, after costs, around £150m a year.

The best results actually come from living donors. For the donor, the risk in this is very small (same as any operation). The chances of success are around 97%. In fact, statistically, living donors have an above average life expectancy (because you have to be healthy, and get great aftercare).

Many people who would like to donate are pressurised by their family not to. 'What if your own child needs a kidney one day?' If everyone who could said - 'Yes, I'll donate a kidney' - no child (or adult!) who needs one would die needlessly. imo - the state should pay people something to do this, for the common good. www.livelifethengivelife.co.uk

BigBuzzard, London, London, London

What about all the people denied drugs to treat diseases meaning they could go blind (older people) suffer the worsening effects of Alzheimers disease (older people) and breast cancer (women) yet money can be found for transplants, which Liam Donaldson says more people from ethnic backgrounds find difficulty in getting a match. So why spend the money that IS available trying to find one? Why not accept that if you are ill, you might end up dying and just because medicine CAN intervene, does that mean it should or must? Why isn't the money that is available used for drugs to treat OUR sick old people instead of other peoples sick?

D Walker, Nottm, UK

With regard to Allow markets for organs ( as per Dan. Los Angeles) I am on the waiting list but do not think this is the way forward. However I do believe that it would be a better way for people to carry a card saying they do not want organs donated.

Christine Mackenzie, Birstall, West Yorkshire

There is, I believe, a shortage of cadavers which medical students can use in studying anatomy. Is the next thing that anyone dying may be used for this purpose unless they have specifically opted out? That is a logical step if you take the view that the state has a right to assume consent to having pieces of body removed. It, like transplants, aims to help the medical profession carry out its business. Perhaps someone in the medical profession would enlighten me as to if this is the next step they plan to propose towards taking controlling of private citizen's bodies.

Bob Finbow, Haverhill, England

I donot have to give written confirmation that I am not allowing my house, contents or car to be taken without my permission
why should I have to opt out of this rape of my body parts?

PS, worcestershire, UK

I have been fighting for this change of legislation for a very long time. But have felt very alone in this fight, despite managing some publicity in my local paper and carrying out my own market researching on the streets, which clearly shows a huge acceptance of the change. I hope that you will carry on with the campaign and please convey my total support to Sir Liam Donaldson . I only wish that there was more that I could do. I should add that I have no personal reasons fo wanting the change, just that, as a concerned citizen the illogicality of the opt in scheme has always concerned me.

june king, whitburn Sunderland, UK

To 'phollie, bromley,' - "all other donations mean someone some where has died a horrible death and his body ripped apart for his organs." No, that's a completely unfounded and untrue assumption.

"With mordern technology it would be too easy for rich unscrupulous recipients or their agents to track down possible matches and arrange for them to come to a premature end. and what next, will we all beforced to give up one kidney, one eye". Yeah, go back to reading science fiction and watching documentaries on conspiracy theories, dear, just don't confuse it with reality.

The fact is, that once you are dead, you no longer have any use for organs, and if as this page says, 90% of people want to donate but never sign up, then why not use a "soft" scheme like this? It makes sense.

Rupert, Bedford,

Just allow markets in organs. If someone needs an organ, they should be able to buy one from the estate of someone who has just died, or someone who wants to make one of their organs available (e.g. kidney, of which we only need 1). People who are squeamish about this idea really do have blood on their hands, because many thousands of people are dying because of current shortages. What would your opinion be on this issue if YOU were the one on an endless waiting list. Markets are the only way to truly fix this horrible problem.

Dan Michales, Los Angeles, CA, USA

I will eventually be on the waiting list due to a condition that is genetic and was born with it, I have looked after myself as much as I can and therefore have not mis treated my body as some comments on here have said that transplants are needed by people who have drunk or smoked and therfore msitreated there body. I believe in an opt out scheme and therefore once you opt out you opt out of recieving the possibilty of a transplant in later life, remember that there is higher chance that you will need a transplant than your organs will be used for transplant. I respect the views of people who do not want there organs to used for transplant however as 90% of the country are willing to transplant should we not change it so that we reflect those views considering only 23% have signed up. The only reason that people have not signed up is beacause people do not want to think about death.

David Hough, Cheltenham,

We lost our daughter in January of this year; she was waiting for a liver transplant. She was only 10 months old. Who knows what good she could have done in her life, had she lived? Some concerns have been raised below about doctors being influenced to switch off a patients life support when they are not truly dead, to provide donor organs. You have been watching too much TV (e.g. Holby), the doctors who diagnose death are a different team of doctors to those caring for the person needing the transplant and the allocation of organs is managed by an independent transplant coordinator, based on clinical need. At the moment people are dying, because of the apathy of others in not signing up to the organ donor register. The argument that people are dying because of their illness is not valid. Following this logic what other treatments would be withdrawn? If I meet a premature end I know my next of kin will draw comfort in my organs giving someone else a chance.

Pete, Bristol,

They steal from us in life and in death it doesn't stop. I am reading about the life of cardavers and i applaude the effort of those who do donate but if it is against my beliefs why should i feel blackmailed...yes blackmailed by soapbox contributers (you know who you are) to give something that is essentially my property? I do not take dicates from the government but this is redunant as i have extensively recorded with my GP, family and specialist not to donate under any circumstance out of a deeply personale reason (not fear but faith). Nice to hear from Ben Summer and Stuart

anoy, wales,

In April I donated a kidney to my brother and it has made a real difference in his life. I am nearly fully recovered and will make a complete recovery. A kidney is something we can afford to give if we are already healthy and are prepared to take care of ourselves for the rest of our lives. Organ donation after death is a also good thing, but I would explicitly deny my organs to someone who was clinically obese or a heavy smoker or heavy drinker. Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last 20 years knows in this day and age what these abuses do to jeopardise our health, and in my opinion these people are deliberately killing themselves by not taking control of their bodies. I would prefer whatever usable organs I have left be given to someone who respects life, who will give the organ a chance.

Phyllis, Clanfield, Hampshire

"People don't die because of a shortage of organs. They die of illness, injury or simple old age."

I bet you'd squeak differently if you had a 4-year old who could only survive if she got a heart transplant.

And yes, it should have been introduced years ago.

starling, Lancaster,

Socialists view private property as theft from the state. Doctors under the current regime have come to view our organs as state property that could and should be more equitably distributed. In order to postpone death for a handful of patients they propose we all live in fear of our vital organs being harvested prematurely by arrogant and ambitious surgeons. This proposal is the ultimate nationalisation, i.e. the effective state confiscation of our most private assets- our bodies.

David Rochester, Liverpool, UK

It is one of the few occasions we actually need the government to make a decision for us. As the subject , for most , is too unpalatable to discuss and we all think it will be such a long way off unfortunately for some it may be as soon as this afternoon ,especially in this rain. I personally am not equipped to make that decision in the time necessary for the organs to be of use. Only with time would one be able to appreciate how much good could come out of such a difficult decision , time we are not be afforded. Take up the opt out scheme and , the decision should be irreversible.That way some of the pain is taken from you just when you need it to be.

Nick Dixon, Sutton Coldfield,

I personally do not support organ transplant as I believe there is a finite limit to our lives and when the bone is pointed it is your turn. I also can think of nothing worst than sitting contemplating my future wishing someone else would die. The world cannot support a system that has no turnover of population lets face it people are born, live, sometimes are sick and inevitively die, so be it.

Pat , Adelaide, Australia

this is the first new labour idea, i can agree with. long overdue, lets start making peoples' lives better, NOW!!!!!!!!!!

neil, london,

What this will become is that Doctors own your body once you are dead. Unacceptable. It destroys the idea of the sacred.

Jane, England, England

Liam Donaldson tries to scare the Country half to death with his Bird flu, killing thousands if not millions.
The rich and all powerfull would get them first anyway.
I tore up my donor card, when I realised they want to put dieseased pictures of organs on cigarette packets. So they would not want mine anyway. Good, I would not want to pass any lawsuits onto my family should they fail to meet some one elses standards.
I used to think that the opt out was a good idea, I always carried one.
That was before I became a second class citizen to the antis.

mandy, cambs, uk

The NHS transplant website says "A person cannot become an organ or tissue donor if they have been diagnosed with HIV or have, or are suspected of having, CJD." Either donorship by default would circumvent this, or the opt-out register would need to be kept up-to-date with HIV diagnoses and CJD suspicions.

Luckily, the criteria for organ donors are less stringent than those for donating blood, or the opt-out list could become a de facto register of all men who have ever had sex with a man, all people who've ever been paid for sex, etc.

Roger, London,

I wish doctors would just treat the sick instead of telling us what to do. If I want advice from my doctor I'll ask for it. We, the public, are not responsible to doctors. They should stop behaving as if we were.

Ian Burgess, Bristol,

There are thousands of people waiting for organs, and many people who have not registered to donate their organs, who do not object to donation, but have not thought about the issue

My daughter has had a life saving heart transplant. If people understood the desperate need for donor organs, and what it is like waiting for life saving organs they would not object to presumed consent

Jodie Lansdale, Brighton, UK

Great idea, total common sense, therefore unlikely ever to be incorporated as it was n;t dreamt up by the "good ideas club " in whitehall.
I Can't see how this can be argued against , if you don't want it as you believe you need your organs for the next life ??? or are paranoid ( monty python 's meaning of life ,probably didn't help the cause ) and think you will be killed for your organs get a "NON DONOR"card .................it's so simple . this will save thousands of lives and reduce huge suffering of people on the waiting lists . Do It ...........gets my vote

Guy, hamburg,

Why not have "presumed consent" for operations too in the NHS and do away with "consent forms" altogether ? It would streamline things remarkably if everything belonged to the State and people had to object to things to be given any credence.

We could do away with eletions and only vote if we objected to the status quo - registering on a database perhaps.

Things could go swimmingly if "presumed consent" existed across most decisions in life....

TomTom, Leeds, England

I'm surprised that any organs are fit for purpose in this day and age of obesity, heart dieases, high cholesterol, etc, which, I might add, is all very much self induced.

kim, London,

I would go one step further. Those who opt out of donating organs should be told when they make their decision that they are also opting out of receiving organs.

Martin, Kearney, NJ, USA

They rob you all your life, hit your next of kin with a death tax when you die then sell your bits off to the highest bidder. How about hospitals paying families of donors for the parts they use? Why do I get the feeling governments are breeding us as nothing more than some kind of worker drones to be exploited at their every whim?

Steve P, Leeds , England

" hundreds of people die each year because of shortages of organs. "

No, they die because their own organs fail, probably due to lack of regard for their own health. If people want to smoke, eat bad food, drink or indulge in dangerous activities then don't expect me to bail them out!

Ben Summers, London,

I notice that the application for a driving license has a section asking whether the applicant agrees to donate an organ in the event of death. Ominously, the way the form is laid out does not give the applicant the optin of saying "no" - there is only a "yes" box. So the applicant can either tick the "yes" box or not respond at all. Presumably, someone ( at the DVLA???)can then tick the "yes" box on his/her behalf??? I AM VERY DISTRUSTFULL OF THE SUGGESTION but don't ask me why

Tony Greenland, Surbiton, UK

As a doctor working in the NHS, the shortage of donor is no myth. It is very real & I have known hundreds of patients dying from a shortage of donor organs.

Dead people won't miss their missing organs. And I for one am registered as a donor. Please support this change in the law. The next time someone needs an organ, it may be your mum, dad, son or even yourself.

Dr Danny Lim, London, London

I firmly believe this is the right way to go. If you ask people the majority will say they support organ donation and yet there are still far too few transplants actually performed.

Often people support organ donation, or carry a donor card, fail to communicate their wishes to their families and the donation never takes place.

Also wouldn't the presumption of donation remove the distressing situation of medical staff having to approach grieving relatives at their lowest moment having lost a loved one.

Maybe there is a case for making your decision to donate organs a legally binding one, I don't know. All I do know is there are an awful lot of lives that are fading away as we sit here discussing this issue, young lives that have barely begun. Children will lose parents parents will lose children all because we are too afraid to tackle this issue head on.

Stuart, West Malvern, Worcestershire

there needs to be an absolutely robust system, where people can opt out. i.e. they should be given the explicit choice on admission to hospital for any major procedure.
Familes should also have the right to opt out their dead relatives in situations where the deceased has never thought it necessary to express a view. For example a 19 year old who is killed in a road traffic accident.
There are religious reasons for people opting out of donating organs too, and these should equally be respected.

af, Leeds, UK

I have for many years carried an organ donor card and would wish, in the event of dying from an accident and my organs remaining viable, that any or all of them be used for anyone who might benefit from them. However, the day the law is changed to tell me I MUST be be a donor unless I specifically opt out, that day I will immediately register to opt out. I will not be dictated to by doctors. My body is mine to do with as I wish, not theirs to help them feel good about themselves. Not only is it utterly unacceptable in a so-called "free country" to have these despots dictate to the population at large, it gives every incentive for doctors to make the minimum effort to ascertain the wishes of the next of kin, who will already be distressed by the death. It is a pity that more people do not feel strongly that they wish to be donors, but they are not responsible for the condition of the patient. Alienating those who DO wish to donate is not the way to achieve a reater number

Bob Finbow, Haverhill, England

The UK will soon be little different than the third world, where there is such moral relativism, the poor are attacked in back alleys and have organs ripped from their bodies for sale to the highest bidder.

Aren't you supposed to be the land of the Magna Carta? Where is the outrage?

J. Perry, Harmony, RI, US

This is nothing at all to do with saving lives. It is simply the medical profession 'looking after it's own'. Unless surgeon's can get their hands on the spare parts, how else are they going to continue earning gross salaries which, on average, exceed £250,000. These salaries are funded by taxpayers - dead or alive! Surely if the NHS wants the organs it should pay a market value to the deceased donor's estate. For that matter, since surgeons tell us that we can survive perfectly well with only one kidney, they could set a good example by all donating one each at the earliest opportunity - thus saving many of the lives that they claim to be so concerned about.

Scalpelblade, Edinburgh,

I have carried a Donor Card for 30 years. If they bring in the "presumed consent" system, however, I will be first in the queue to opt-out. A gift is not a gift if it is taken for granted, and my organs do not belong to this government.

S Foster, Doncaster, UK

There are thousands of people waiting for organs, and many people who have not registered to donate their organs, who do not object to donation, but have not thought about the issue

My daughter has had a life saving heart transplant. If people understood the desperate need for donor organs, and what it is like waiting for life saving organs they would not object to presumed consent

Jodie Lansdale, Brighton, UK

Whilst in sound mind and body, I may indicate my desire to have any useful organs of mine removed at my death for use by someone else.

But why, oh why, having made that decision clear, should my next of kin be asked to confirm that, immediately after my death, when (hopefully) they are somewhat upset, and disturbed by the thought I might be being cut up.

Get THAT straightened out first. If I carry a card giving my consent, then there should be no questions posed to anyone else.

Pondlife, France,

This is already a "damp and overcrowded little island"( John Selwyn Gummer MP) and if some of us did not have our lives prolonged by transplant would it really and truly matter? I think not. Only the very young are, potentially, worth saving and even then one must be careful that prolonging someone's life through transplant (or any other means) is generally in the public interest and not just an emotional response. As an aged person with many diseases no-one could possibly use my damaged and by-passed heart, liver or kidneys, or, as a diabetic, anything else of me. This is a bad move and should be stopped. Opt-in to donation schemes not opt-out, should continue to be the norm.

J S M Roberts, O.B.E., Seaford, UK

People don't die because of a shortage of organs. They die of illness, injury or simple old age. The language used by proponents of presumed consent implies that people somehow have a right to receive someone else's organs. This is nonsense.

Andrew P., Montreal, Canada

Will all doctors be registered then?

dave, peterborough,

It saves lives, and those who don't like it can opt out. This should have been introduced years ago.

Richard Milne, Edinburgh, UK

If this was implemented, which I can't see happening here, you would see a surge of people getting the opt out cards.

Personally, I think it would leave the organ donation service in much more dire straights than it's already claimed to be.

I wonder what the donor relatives of George Best's liver are thinking?

kim, London,

"Presumed consent" is just one more step towards the technocratic tyranny that is the 21st-century West. How many people in the NHS die because of dirty wards and MRSA infections? Is this figure more, or less, than those who die awaiting organ transplants? I think we all know the answer to that! And the dirt problem is NOT down to funding, but to the grubby, undereducated, hooliganised society that we have created. Let's fix THAT, shall we, before giving yet more authority to technocrats and less responsibility to individuals?

Meic Pearse, Houghton College NY, U.S.A.

I agree with donation by default. Only inertia prevents most people from becoming donors. Mind you, if this were Iraq and not England, I would tend to agree with Phollie....

Ivor, Shepperton, UK

I recognise the organ shortage and it sounds logical everyone to be treated as organ donors after death. But does proposal not saying to fulfil a shortage of a kind [organs] we no longer need to respect the dead, unless they chose in advance to be respected [opt-out]. Decisions are already been made by people at present as to whether they wish to become a organ donor - surely we must presume if they are not a registered organ donor then wish not to become a donor? The government should concentrate on educating people to the benefit of becoming an organ donor.

d-s choy, london, uk

As the state presumes that it can steal from us during life that which we do not use: for example the appropriation "for the common good" of empty property, or of dormant bank accounts, and can steal from us after death through Inheritance Tax, it's hardly surprising that Donaldson and Nathonson presume that they can compound the state's graverobbing by stealing our bodies after death.

My body is mine: it is up to me to decide what happens to it after I have finished with it. If somebody wants it, they can pay me for it, and the proceeds can go towards Inheritance theft taxes.

D Stewart, London,

Yes, everyone who is healthy and has had no diseases that may show up in the donee. Example, although I am fine and have been for over 20 years, I have had lymphoma - and ig I donate an organ, the recipient might develop lymphoma, too. I cannot give blood so assume my organs are carriers, too.

Nancy, Santa Fe, NM, USA

Why do official bodies, of whatever profession or persuasion, adopt these stalinist tendencies? I find this trend of official paternalism, both in this case and in many others, deeply worrying.

A J McCabe, Doncaster,

NO WE MUSN'T. it's wrong to say there's a shortage of organs because they are not a yemanufactured or cultivated commodity. they are inside the people who are born with them. The reality is that , apart from kidnys and other organs that can be taken from living donors, all other donations mean someone some where has died a horrible death and his body ripped apart for his organs. yes we can be bombarded with images of loveley young children who need a lung or heart but only at the cost of another loveley young life coming to an end. and if you're lying comatose in a hospital bed, at what stage does it pass from the doctors saying "we are doing all we can to save him" to "we've done all we can, get his liver to the drunkard in room 4" With mordern technology it would be too easy for rich unscrupulous recipients or their agents to track down possible matches and arrange for them to come to a premature end. and what next, will we all beforced to give up one kidney, one eye

phollie, bromley,

This is a good plan. I would like it to be adopted by us also. This type of policies could also help eradicate the trade in human organs.

Justine., Dublin , Ireland

The prison population should be viewed as a reservoir of organs. Hence those who refuse to make any contribution to society, could be forced to make a contribution eg kidney donation. This need not impair them in any way.

PW, Belfast, NI

'hundreds of people die each year because of shortages of organs' - these people do not die because of 'shortages of organs', they die because they have a fatal disease.

I have no wish to have my organs used to prolong the lives of people I don't know who may well have occupied themselves, while healthy, in exploiting and taking advantage of those weaker than themselves. (A human tendency made glaringly obvious in the organ 'trade'.)

Jim, Oxbin, USA

In theory, I am in favour of organ donation, but I would like the medical profession to be more open about what they believe constitutes 'death'. Until I can be 100% sure that my organs or those of my family will only be taken if we are dead, I won't be donating or giving permission for donation. Is it true that 'dead' bodies are given anaesthesia before organs are removed?

Wendy Lamb, Bergerac, France,

It's about time the UK moved to presumed consent. Apathy has a lot to answer for.

Lucy, London, UK

Fine! You're dead anyway, not like you'll miss the organs 6ft underground!

Peter, Portsmouth,

It's a nice idea in theory if you trust the system. But if there was a high profile campaign for somebody who desperately needed an organ and you just happened to be very ill at that time with a body full of organs..... I can imagine some unscrupulous types not making too much effort to ensure your survival.

Jon, Newport, Wales

The idea of automatic donation unless going to the trouble of making a written decision to opt out has distinct appeal. Many people find the idea of donating parts of their bodies scary to distasteful. but if they didn't have to make the actual decision in time the idea will be regarded as a tolerable norm. Like dental fillings, accepted but seldom mentioned.

Simon Marshland, Bath, UK

Unintended consequences! So a dead woman can have hundreds of childen by fathers she would not give the time of day!

Brian Gilbert, Hampton, Middx

It's a good idea, no one needs organs once they've died.

There should be numerous checks and safety nets though, it would be possible for murder to result in the survival of the murderers relative via organ donation.

Keep the system how it is now, exept send organ donation forms off to everyoen in the country and keep it 100% anonymous, so that the crazy scenario described above is less likely to occur.

GK the cynic, West Drayton, UK

surely there has to be an easier way than this to actually included people this does seem very well off putting to say the least, would not a government sponsered advertising campaigne with a national "enlisted "database prove better.

I for one want to be asked not " Presumed " for anything !

Peter, Camberley, uk

surely this has got to be one labour tax too far...

sf, New York, USA