Reply to: Presumed Consent

[Marina]

I am totally against this. Is nothing sacred any more? Should the government have the right to assume ownership of your body after you are dead? IMO No.

I think that the present donor system should receive more promotion, perhaps as part of some sort of general studies in schools. The decision to donate organs should be a concious choice made by the donor, not a default position that the state can take advantage of.

Legally, the dead have no rights. Any consideration of their former wishes in life is given only out of respect to the living, either their friends and loved ones or society in general.

What's more, if the deceased had treatment at taxpayers' expense on the NHS, why shouldn't society get some benefit from their otherwise useless carcass in return (even if they did pay some NI in life) ?

But as I think others have pointed out, given how doctors love playing God, organs should definitely not be swappable in the same hospital or by prior agreement between doctors. Only a kind of "Secret Santa" system, where doctors tending the donor have no knowledge of who or where a suitable recipient might be, should be allowed.

[Denny]

I am totally against this. Is nothing sacred any more? Should the government have the right to assume ownership of your body after you are dead? IMO No.

I think that the present donor system should receive more promotion, perhaps as part of some sort of general studies in schools. The decision to donate organs should be a concious choice made by the donor, not a default position that the state can take advantage of.

I agree. They can take my piano, by all means, but not my organ.

[shaunbhoy]

Not bad only took you an hour and a half....

For your next task show me an advert that lets the great unwashed know this URI so that they can sign up.

Some of us have work to do. It took seconds once I started searching. However this is not the only means of joining the current system. I'm surprised you didn't know...........or then again perhaps I'm not. Therein lies the problem with the current system.
Now, as I have answered your questions perhaps you would be so kind as to give me some cogent reasons why our organs should not be routinely recycled for the benefit of our fellow human beings once dead?

[Ardesco]

www.uktransplant.org.uk

NEXT!!

Not bad only took you an hour and a half....

For your next task show me an advert that lets the great unwashed know this URI so that they can sign up.

[shaunbhoy]

Many things. If we were more practically minded we would make glue out of the sinews, chairs out of the skin, run cars on the fat and serve the protein up in school dinners, or at least in kebabs. But people generally form a stronger emotional attachment to the object that they were in their lives. It's just the impractical side of being human.

Yes I can see the third way emerging from your points TimberWolf. Perhaps a compromise might be to have a 3-tier system whereby one can choose between leaving your body to medical science, burning/burying as applicable, or giving the corpses to IKEA for their new organic furniture range.
eek

[TimberWolf]

Why the fixation with hanging on to your innards etc. after you are dead? What is it that people imagine they are useful for short of making coffins heavier?

Many things. If we were more practically minded we would make glue out of the sinews, chairs out of the skin, run cars on the fat and serve the protein up in school dinners, or at least in kebabs. But people generally form a stronger emotional attachment to the object that they were in their lives. It's just the impractical side of being human.

[sasguru]

I want to donate organs etc. However, I don't want just any tom, dick or mohammed getting them!

Careful. If you needed an organ (and trust me you do) you wouldn't really care if it came from Tom Dick or Mohammed.

[shaunbhoy]

Would the consenting conscripted here also go for being experimented on by medial students and having your innards strung from one end of a film studio to another by the mad German guy?

Why the fixation with hanging on to your innards etc. after you are dead? What is it that people imagine they are useful for short of making coffins heavier?

[TimberWolf]

Would the consenting conscripted here also go for being experimented on by medial students and having your innards strung from one end of a film studio to another by the mad German guy?

[shaunbhoy]

OK give me a link to a URL where people can sign up!

www.uktransplant.org.uk

NEXT!!

[Ardesco]

I'm still waiting for that link Shaunbhoy.....

[xoggoth]

One should be able to specify who the organs will be used for. I still carry the donor card in my wallet, it has on the back, "Except politicians and civil servants"

I did want to add lots of others like common people, foreign people, foxhunters, toffee nosed gits, religious people etc etc but there was not enough room.

Ps I don't know why we don't just send the bodies to butchers' shops and stop killing so many nice little animals.

[Churchill]

And your argument is that rather than address this, perhaps by advertising, door-to-door, school visits etc, to automatically harvest dead people's organs.

It is a personal choice to be a donor and it should remain this way. If anything should be out of reach of the government it should be our own bodies.

You're a "citizen" now, your body isn't "your" body!

[Ruprect]

It IS accessible to those who wish to access it. The problem is that most people don't bother as they can't be @rsed. Hence the shortfall in donor organs. Next!

And your argument is that rather than address this, perhaps by advertising, door-to-door, school visits etc, to automatically harvest dead people's organs.

It is a personal choice to be a donor and it should remain this way. If anything should be out of reach of the government it should be our own bodies.

[Churchill]

I want to donate organs etc. However, I don't want just any tom, dick or mohammed getting them!