Of course bodies are considered trash- what do people do with 'em? With a few exceptions (easily covered by the opt-out), most people just end up buried or burned. Kinda sounds like trash to me.
Would it make the idea more palatable if instead of “The State” (with its obvious 1984 implications), we refer to “society” or “the community”?
That’s not really a useful answer. If you’re going to ask for laws to be changed then you’re going to have to show some concrete evidence that it’s worth changing the law. “A non-zero number” is not concrete evidence.
Yes, I frequently spend thousands of dollars to bury my trash in an elaborate wood or metal receptacle in a park-like setting, and mark the spot with an engraved stone.
Surely nobody can be this clueless. Have you ever been to a funeral? Have you ever been to a graveyard? I’d wager that there are very few cultures on Earth that treat their dead as trash. Even Neanderthals didn’t treat their dead as trash. No, they opted to bury them in certain positions and to include artifacts. People visit graveyards to mourn and remember. I don’t know of many people who visit the local dump to mourn and remember that neat sofa they threw away four years ago.
I can understand the attitude that a dead body is just a dead body with no special meaning attached to it. To some degree I certainly agree. However, those who ignore or are dismissive of death rituals (we all have them) strike me as incapable of understanding other human beings.
Odesio
Yes, it is. It’s quite concrete evidence. If all organs are up for potential use unless the opt-out clause was invoked, then that will lead to a non-zero increase in the number of organs available. As such it’s a perfectly useful answer. We will make use of resources that are, literally, being left to rot in holes in the ground and instead we will use a non-zero number of them to save lives and improve the quality of life of a non-zero number of people.
Not worth it.
I feel much the same way.
By extension, why shouldn’t any (or every) thing you own become government property upon your death? Because what was your property now becomes your estate, and the state does not have an overriding interest in snatching your body after you vacate.
I’m a donor. I consider that to be “willing my organs to whomever can use them”. If the government wants to promote organ donorship then perhaps it ought to give a tax break to the estate of people who donate their organs. I was going to suggest offering a bounty to your beneficiaries, but there are some folks who just don’t have the patience to wait upon natural causes and might attempt to hasten the process. 
There is no tax on estates less than $5 million, so that’s not going to generate much donation.
If the insurance mandate is declared unconstitutional, all drivers licenses could read:
EMERGENCY CARE INSTRUCTIONS
(check one or more boxes)
— I have medical insurance
— I am an organ donor. (if box 1 is unchecked, please wait)
Singapore has had an opt-out scheme for years. Kidney transplants have tripled, apparently, but there are scenes. (I do think the medical staff could have been a tad more gentle about it. Still, a liver patent is going to die because a dead man’s family wanted to cry over a hunk of meat for one more day.) There is an exception for Muslims.
Apparently organ donors are higher on the list if they should require organs - I think that’s a good idea.
That sounds better than my proposed tax-break scam, I mean Scheme. 
We spend tens of thousands of dollars putting people in very special boxes in very special holes in very special places. No, it’s not trash.
No. At least “the state” is a concrete entity, and although I generally oppose utilitarian arguments, at least it’s possible to form one. “Society” is such a vague concept that one can’t even form a reasonable argument around it.
Right. But if I can’t care about the crime because I don’t know about it and will never find out, how is this different than being dead?
Look, I have a hard time motivating myself to create a will, because even though I care about my family now, I know that when I’m dead I won’t care about them, and therefore it makes little sense to care about how my assets are distributed. I get the concept.
What I do care about, right now, is the extent of the state’s domain of control. The specifics don’t interest me that much–we might as well be talking here about the state demanding the right to harvest tattoos to preserve some cultural heritage. It doesn’t matter; I simply don’t think that the state has default rights to my corpse.
I don’t understand. If the state has automatic rights to the corpse, why don’t they decide whether to harvest it for organs, donate it to science, or otherwise? After all, they can make a better determination as to which target has the highest priority, and further, which is the best use of a particular corpse (say, it goes to science if the person died of some interesting disease, an organ donor if the person died as a road smear, or as a fuel source otherwise). Why should the person have any input at all into what happens with the body?
Eh, the taste varies from person to person.
Your stuff can be reused after you die. Your body isn’t good for anything except saving lives or feeding worms.
In other words, it can be reused. (I’m sure creative readers could imagine additional ways in which bodies could be reused.)
Besides, sentimental and symbolic “uses” for things can be plenty important to people. I’m sure you have some object in your home right now which has no practical use to you but which means a lot.
If you’re willing to concede to the state the determination about how to dispose of your body after your death, I can’t see why you should object to the state making that determination for everything else of yours, too. After all,
No, seizure of the body after death is a violation of the human rights of the living person who wished otherwise.
How is a donation mandatory?
I actually don’t. I’m happy to harvest everything down to my eyeballs, but there are some who would be opposed for religious reasons. Dead or not, the only time the government can interfere with your life is when they tax your estate.
Arguably though, the state could make a better and more socially-beneficial redistribution of your goods after you die. Your chosen heirs might not be the most needy people.
I don’t really believe that, but I don’t think this whole question is as cut-and-dried as it seems. The state could appropriate bodies and sell them as fertiliser, or turn them into grotesque statues, or whatever, and it could be argued to have greater utility than burial, but I’m not sure that’s enough. We are essentially talking about a form of communism here - which I don’t personally object to just because of what it’s called, but to allow the state to take full control in this way feels dangerously wrong.
No, it’s not. You’re argument is the equivalent of “if it saves just one life it’s worth it” which is also not a good argument. I realize estimates might be difficult to come by but they should exist for your side of the argument.
I… see. Because I think death rituals are secondary to the benefits of opt-in organ donation, I’m “incapable of understanding other human beings?”
My mother died when I was 18. I’ve been back to her grave a few times, but you know what? She’s not there. She’s in my memories, and in the pictures I’ve got of her.
My grandmother died a few years earlier than that. Once again, though, “she” isn’t in the grave. She’s in the tree that we planted in her memory, and in the plastic cow she gave me when I was very young.
My wife and I have a pact- when we die, we both want to be cremated for as cheaply as possible and then scattered wherever the survivor thinks best appropriate. After, of course, our organs have been harvested. Use the money left over to throw a good party, or go on a trip, or something.
I’m sure, however, that your death ritual of letting the body rot in the ground just so you can visit the grave is more important than potentially saving someone stranger’s life.
Since this isn’t The Pit, I can’t tell you what you can do with your “clueless” comment, or your declaration that I’m “incapable of understanding other human beings”. Although I must admit that I’m half tempted to take the warning, anyway.