I’m just saying that, in the US, there is little to no precedence for the government taking dominion over a competent adult’s body (not going into abortion, that’s a whole different ballgame). Don’t want that life saving surgery? No one is going to force you to get it. Want to cut your ear off? Go right ahead, there is no law against it. From a Time articleon a minor being forced into chemo:
The only exception that I know of is if the person cannot give consent (unconscious, for example) or has been declared mentally incompetent and has made no other legal arrangements for someone else to make medical decisions in their stead (a living will or power of attorney, for example). In that case the medical establishment can take life saving measures, even if that involves removing an organ. In the case of death an executor, spouse or close family member may be called on to make decisions about the body. Disposal of the body is only in the hands of the government if none of the above can be located or refuse to claim the body.
TL/DR: For opt out organ donation to be the default in the US would require some pretty fundamental changes in legal views, possibly even a change to the Constitution to address any “illegal search and seizure” aspects.
But it’s not taking dominion… I guess we just have completely different views on what it is. To me it’s just making it easier to donate than not. You seem to be treating it like when the government decides “ok guys there’s a road going down this way, you can take my price now or after a long suit that’s gonna cost me time and you money”.
The closest thing we have to “the gummint” (actually, doctors) being able to overrule someone regarding necessary medical treatment is when the life of a minor is considered to be at risk. You are told you need a tetanus shot, you’re over 18 and don’t want it? OK. Your child is in the same situation? We’re vaccinating, period. People in Spain aren’t forced to get a transplant, chemo or change their diet, any more than Americans are.
Or, worse, worrying that they’ve been getting up to something that would keep you out of Heaven:
[QUOTE=Archie Bunker]
My hands was pickin’ pockets… my feet was runnin’ away from bank robberies… and my eyes was lookin’ at hard pore cornography.
[/QUOTE]
Please understand, Nava, I’m a hard core supporter of organ donation. It’s just that to make “opt out” a reality in the US we have to answer the question “Who has the right to take organs (or any other “belongings”) from a body?”. To this point in our history, I don’t believe there is any precedence for anyone making that decision outside the person or their designee. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I believe US citizens do have a different view of this issue than Europeans. I can virtually guarantee that, if it were implemented in the US tomorrow, there would be a huge backlash.
Ours was “why are we making it difficult to donate, when the majority of the population is opting in?” The opt-in model required every close relative of the deceased to be located and agree on the donation, if they hadn’t done the paperwork; under the current model (for Navarre, the protocols vary slightly by region), if a close relative refuses the donation it still gets stopped but there’s no requirement to ask each of them. That requirement alone could be a pain in the ass, it was possible to miss a donation because the deceased’s sibling was on a trip to Australia. But we already had very high donation levels, both for dead and living donors.