Some reasons that people give often as to why they wouldn't be a blood donor, a bone marrow donor, or an organ donor:

1)I'm scared of needles:

Sure, many people are scared of needles. I know a few myself, and it is as natural as not being scared of them. However, there are many young children who have cancer, or who need a blood transfusion. These children are sometimes not even a year old...do you think that they aren't scared of needles too? If they can become used to it, so can you. How would you like it if your child was ill, or you were ill, and there was no body who would give a blood donation because everyone was scared of needles?

2)I don't have time:

Do you really think that these people, when they fell ill, looked at their calendar to see if they had "time" to be ill? They had jobs, or children to look after, just like you. However, upon falling ill, they realized that if they didn't take the "time" to get better, they might not be there much longer to look after their children or to work. They are ill much longer than it will take you to give a simple blood donation (which takes about an hour), or a bone marrow donation (which can take a few days of recuperating, but they will stay months at the hospital, and on strong medications for a long time to get well).

3)If I sign my organ donor card, maybe they will come and get me for a kidney before I die, or something like that:

That will never happen, or in any case, not for strangers. Certainly if your brother, your sister, one of your parents, or your child fell ill, the doctors would ask you if you would accept being tested to see if you were a match as a possible donor. They would ask even if you hadn't signed your organ donor card. As you probably know, the only organs you can give up before dying are a kidney, a lung, and a cornea (part of the eye). However, there is nobody who will ask you to give these things up before your death unless they're related to you. It's impossible. However, you can still give blood or be a bone marrow donor because these things are re-made by your body when you need them. A bone marrow donation only takes about 3-5% of your total bone marrow. That means that you still have 95-97% left afterwards, and whatever you gave will soon be re-made by your body.

4)Women should not give blood because they menstruate, and it could be dangerous for them to lose too much blood.

False. In fact, it is true that anyone can be endangered if they lose too much blood, but in reality, during a blood donation, they only take 500 mL (approx.). A normal menstruating woman (who doesn't lose an abnormally high amound of blood compared with another woman, during her menstrual period) only loses about 50 mL of blood, which is 10% of what they take during a blood donation. A blood donation can make you feel more tired than usual, or maybe you'll get hungry faster than normal. This is a normal reaction, but in general, it doesn't last more than a few days, and it's uncommon for someone to feel unwell still after 7-10 days. If this happens, you should visit a doctor. Seeing as they take out 500 mL, and it takes, let's say the higher amount of time, the total of 10 days to recuperate totally, if a menstruating woman loses 50 mL, she should not take more than a day to recuperate...however, the blood is already lost over a period of a few days for most women, which can range from about 3 days to maybe as high as 11 days. It's certain that the more days a woman is menstruating, the greater her chances are that she's losing a bit more blood than the normal, but this is not always the case. It's possible that her flow is very light, and it just takes longer. In general, the body of a woman should be able to re-make its blood as fast as it needs it during a menstrual period. Blood always looks like there's more there than there actually is, so it may look like there is a lot in a pad, but it's probably not the case. If you believe that you lose too much blood during your menstrual periods, you should see a doctor, because there can be a cure, and it can be dangerous to continue like that if it's the case; you could develop an anemia, or other health problems. If he says that everything's fine, there should be no reason why you couldn't give blood unless you are under 100 lbs., or fall into a few categories of people who are not allowed to give blood (like people who are HIV positive).

5)I've heard that there are organ stealings that have happened, and I'm scared that if I sign my organ donor card, it might happen to me:

Actually, it's completely false, and even if it were real, a signature on your organ donor card is not what would stop them. That signature on the organ donor card will only stop honest doctors. There has never been any proof that there has been any organ stealing in any country in the world! However, there are lots of reasons why it could never happen. I will not repeat them all, as you can easily read them here. The most interesting documentaries from this page are the "body_snatchers_film_debunking", and the "baby_parts_myth".

6)They might unplug me if I am living on machines and they need my organs:

Again, that's false. First of all, they never unplug machines if there is still a hope that you might regain consciousness (if you are in a coma). However, if you have been in a coma for almost a month, and there is no brain activity, and there is a good chance that you are probably very much brain damaged (for instance, you had been drowned, underwater, for 45 minutes when they found you), they will ask your family if they can unplug you. There is no one who lives year after year in a hospital on machines like that unless they think you might come back (wake up).

7)It might hurt me when they take out my organs:

Highly unlikely, because they will probably use anesthetic like any other operation. They are about to get some organs...they won't take any risks. After that, you will gently die under the effect of the anesthetic and/or strong pain-killing medications. However, if your brain is really "dead", you would probably not feel anything at all even if nothing was used.

Did you know that umbilical cord blood from a newborn can be used to save the life of someone? It can be used like a bone marrow donation...for more information, contact your hospital, they should know how to procede with something like this...and anyhow, your new baby won't be needing that anymore once he's born, that's for sure!

I hope that this page has answered some of your questions. If you have any commentaries, send them here. Thanks for reading all this!

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