Okay, Pal, Hand Over Your Liver
Doctors in Britain are expected to call for compulsory organ donation tomorrow. Oh, for now they say people will be able to opt out of the scheme, but that will change very quickly if enough people do so. Bet on it.
People should automatically have their organs removed for transplant after they die unless they opted out while alive, Britain's most senior doctor is expected to say tomorrow in his annual report.
Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, is expected to call for a change in the law amid fears that people are dying needlessly due to a shortage of donors.
Latest figures show that more than 7,300 Britons are on the waiting list for a life-saving transplant, a rise of about 30 per cent in the past 10 years.
Britain operates a system where organs can be removed only from people who have joined the donor register or carried a donor card.
Under a new system of presumed consent, which is supported by the British Medical Association, everyone would be treated as an organ donor unless they explicitly opted-out of the scheme while alive.
It is understood that Sir Liam will call for a "soft" system of presumed consent which takes into account the views of relatives.
Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, who tried to introduce presumed consent in 2004, said: "Bodies are buried or cremated complete with organs that could have been used to save lives, not because the deceased objected to organ donation but simply because they never got round to signing up to the NHS Organ Donation register or informing their relatives of their wishes," he said.
This is where socialized medicine begins to show its ugly side. Note the presumption that the doctor knows better than you do what you intended. Note also the idea that your organs actually belong to the state to do with as they see fit. It will start as "soft" enforcement, but it will harden up soon enough. There will be punishment for people who opt out, probably in the form of denying medical services. Britons will be nothing more than a source of spare parts for the bureaucrats. Soylent Green, anyone?
UPDATE: I also should have mentioned that Larry Niven predicted a very similar thing in his story The Jigsaw Man.
Medicine, World news | Gaius Monday, 16 July , 2007
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Public Secrets: from the files of the Irishspy — Monday, 16 July , 2007 @ 3:59 pm
By Sylvia, Monday, 16 July , 2007 @ 11:11 am
Eerie.
By Jaded, Monday, 16 July , 2007 @ 11:32 am
Slip sliding away….
I swear if you read about what the Germans and Japanese did during WWII with regards to “medicine” you could almost place that time today.
By Evil HR Lady, Monday, 16 July , 2007 @ 2:34 pm
I don’t know. I’m not as freaked out by this. It just seems to me that you are changing the assumption. Right now, we assume you don’t wish to donate your organs. Under this plan, we would assume that you do.
I’d actually be pretty upset if I was killed in a car crash and my organs went to waste because they couldn’t contact my husband in time. (He doesn’t like to check voicemail.) Of course, I’d be dead, so I don’t know how upset I’d really be, but in theory, I’d be upset.
Theoretically.
I, do, however, agree that I very much dislike the assumption that the state owns your body.