Last month, I noted the ethical problems associated with New York City's plan to have organ retrieval ambulances standing by to harvest (or keep ready to harvest) the organs of people who die in the city. Well, there's a reason for real concern. In France a man was being cut open to retrieve his organs.
Doctors in Paris earlier this year called in transplant surgeons after failing to resuscitate a 45-year old man believed to have suffered a massive heart attack in the French capital.
According to a report by the Paris university hospital's ethics committee – seen by Le Monde newspaper – doctors continued providing a heart massage for an hour and a half while they waited for the surgeons to arrive.
When the surgeons began operating on the man to remove his organs, he began to breathe, his pupils became responsive and he reacted to a pain test.
France has an "opt out" law which is being pushed here in the US, too. That presumes you gave your consent unless you specifically refuse. In advance. And if you die with whatever paperwork the state requires to opt out.
And you may or may not be dead….
This really is an ethical problem, folks.
My response to those who argue that opt out laws are not an inconvience, is to posit that they all be scheduled for execution an a yearly basis unless they go down to the court house and fill out the "opt out" forms. It simply isn’t the job of government to do these things.
Sounds like Larry Niven’s work to me….
I’m sorry, but "opt-out" anything is flat-out wrong. For instance having to specifically tell your bank not to share your personal information with outside companies is a travesty. Your personal data should remain private by default, unless you specifically give your permission to share it. Of course banks and other financial institutions (credit card companies, insurance companies, etc.) hate that idea because how many people would actuall give their permission to share their personal information? They’d never be able to make any substantial cash on the side selling info if they had to ask your permission. By the same logic, your organs should remain yours unless you specifically give permission for their removal. Any other approach puts one in danger of exactly what happened with the Frenchman mentioned above.