And the answer is no.
Will change to organ donor rules mean more transplants?
The Welsh – and the Spanish before them – have already discovered this. In order to be used for transplant, the body must be fresh, undiseased and in a hospital. Presumed consent (which is not consent) will not necessarily make more of these available.
That is all beside the moral argument and that one is pretty straightforward. Assuming anyone’s consent is not consent at all. It is the nationalisation of our bodies, it is the state seizing that which it does not own. Organ donation is, and should remain, a gift given willingly and with the full, informed, consent of the donor. Taking without specifically asking beforehand is theft.
Remember the people proposing this are the same people who condemn opt-out in other circumstances on the grounds that assumption is not good enough. They are right. It is not good enough here. Situational ethics do not apply.
It is still too early to say what impact the change in Wales has had, but so far about 205,000 people have signed the opt-out register, 6% of the population.
And I will do likewise if they bring it in here.
They’d have slim pickings with me. I think I’ve used all my organs to the max during the course of my hedonistic existence, so I doubt there’s much life left in any of them.
Interesting to see that the campaign supporting this has been feeding the media happy people today who are content and satisfied that thier loved ones donated thier organs and saved lives as a result. That is to be congratulated.
But it’s a long stretch from that to assuming your body is free game to any surgeon who wants your bits to harvesty whatever he wants to. That is not “donating”, that is “just taking regardless” and as at least one surgeon has pointed out it might result in many people being so offended by the sheer presumtion of the policy that they will sign to opt out where they might have actually donated were it a more voluntary option.
And once again the weasel words of the BMA about “starting a conversation within families about donation” is just bollocks. They just want top take them, and they are counting on the opposite of “a national conversation” – i.e. utter apathy – to get what they want.
Ironically the number of people on the organ donation register has more than doubled since 2010. Ironically in Wales the introduction of this policy has not moved the organ re-use rates one bit as many have simply opted out.
Once the medical profession has the ability to swap out an organ as easily as a mechanic can swap out an engine or other parts from a car, then it will become compulsory.
Robert Silverberg wrote a short story way back in 1972 about this and you can read it here for free:
https://lexal.net/scifi/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/silverberg3/silverberg31.html
Do you think that Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao and all the rest would NOT have ordered this scenario if they could have lived a few more years?
The government owns you and your body …and don’t you forget it.
ai 3d printing gmi no panic. thanks LR)
The whole business of implied consent sounds positively Nivenesque. Reference Larry Niven’s ‘Gil the Arm’ stories where even with convicted felons being ‘broken for spares’ there remains a significant market for illegally obtained human materiel.
Yep – that’s a point. Once transplant technology becomes easy, the death penalty will be brought back toot de sweet as the French say. Except instead of being hung by the neck until dead, you will be stripped down like a scrapyard car.