I have the right to decide what happens to my body after I die.
You do not.
A failure on my part to sign a form does not entitle you to override whatever my decision may have been.
You can stop calling it “donation” if your idea is to compel people to “donate” their organs under pain of death for non-compliance.
I guess “compulsory organ harvesting” doesn’t sound as good in the promos.
You only get to make the decisions you make. You don’t get to make the decisions you might have made, because they are, by definition, not decisions you actually made. Nothing needs to be overridden, because you didn’t do anything to override.
BTW, I, through the government, DO in fact decide what happens to your body after you die. The gov’t decides where you can be buried, what may and may not be done to a corpse, what disposal or non-disposal options are allowed and not allowed. You, the corpse, certainly don’t decide, and even if you wanted to do something specific with your corpse while you were alive, what actually happens depends entirely on the living people who are dealing with your corpse and estate, because you’ll be dead by then.
I’d like to have an opt-out system, but whether the system is opt-out or opt-in, I’ve always believed that one good way to deal with the issue is precisely a system in which recipients are prioritized based on their decision about donation. If you believe that organ donation is a useful and valuable procedure, and that it benefits society as a whole, then you can make your own organs available, and in return you will get access to available organs if and when you need them.
Someone who does not want to donate their organs might have perfectly good reasons for making that decision. Their reasons might be religious; they might be personal and moral; they might be pragmatic. But if you have those reasons, then I believe that it’s reasonable for society to ask you to be consistent in your reasoning. If you have objections to the system of organ donation when you are the donor, you should be willing to forego some of your privileges as a recipient.
I made this argument to ** Smapti** in a previous thread on this topic, and he complained that such a system is an extortion system rather than a donation system. I replied that I’d be happy to remove the word donation.
It’s not organ donation; it’s now an organ collective, a sort of medical kibbutz, and if you want to reap the harvest, you have to be prepared to help sow the crops. You are perfectly welcome not to be a part of the collective. You’re not being held hostage; you have an opportunity to make a decision about your involvement well before there is any likelihood of you either needing an organ or being in a position to provide one.
My collective will even be generous enough to offer organs to non-members, as long as all needy members have been taken care of first. We’re not monsters. 
I should add, by the way, that in recent years I’ve also become persuaded that there would be significant benefits to society as a whole if we removed the prohibition on selling organs, at least as it pertains to organs that can be donated while a person is still alive, like kidneys… I’ve read all of the criticisms of this idea, from black markets to kidnapping to exploitation of the poor, but I think many of the fears are overblown, and the benefits would outweigh the drawbacks. The fact is that organs are a scarce and valuable commodity, and that people should be allowed to sell their own organs if they are properly informed of the risks and consequences, and if they are willing accept those risks and consequences in exchange for remuneration.
I understand that some people see this as macabre, and some will argue that we shouldn’t be allowed to profit from someone else’s dire need. But America’s medical system is a massive source of profit and economic gain at just about every level of the system; why not let the actual donors get in on the action?
And what evidence do you have that I didn’t make that decision?
None, which is why “cut him up and sell him for scrap” is not a viable default.
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I am not “the corpse”. I am the human individual that owns that body, and my property rights do not cease upon its expiration.
Sorry, the government has legally decided this. It’d be illegal for applicable government and health care workers to not do this (for those that have not officially opted “no”), now that the law has been passed. I thought you were in favor of people following the law?
Do you have a cite for this? This is kind of a remarkable assertion, and I’m pretty sure it’s utter nonsense.
The law should be followed. That doesn’t preclude me from believing that the law is wrong and ought to be changed.
By what criteria do you determine that “the law is wrong”? In the past, IIRC, you’ve asserted that the only possible morality comes from the law.
I determine that it is wrong because it is not harmonious with my understanding of what the law should be.
Do I not have the right to declare, via my will and my estate, the means by which my body should be disposed of? This is evidence that I, the person and the will, am legally distinct from the body I inhabit.
Speaking of bodily ownership, my property rights to my body extend to putting into it whatever I like. Laws against drug use are therefore immoral.
I’m the human individual who owns the product of my labor. My property rights in that product cannot be taken by the government, and therefore taxation is theft.
I assume you’d agree with both of those things?
I’d agree that you have the right to believe those things and to advocate for them, as I am doing when I advocate against for-profit organ harvesting.
Okay. Thankfully for the UK public health system, your bonkers understanding doesn’t appear to be popular in the UK.
That’s different than what you said.
No. (Nor did I say any such thing.)
What I think is that there’s no legal principle by which the state can treat human remains as “medical waste”. The fact that the current discussion centers around the legal rights of a person to control the disposition of organs after death of course acknowledges that.
No, not really. In many jurisdictions, your family decides what to do with your body and can usually override your last wishes. In Canada, 1 in 5 of people who opted to be organ donors had their decision reversed by family*. If no one claims your body (notice the verb there), then you’re the state’s responsiblity.
*I’m rather certain my wife won’t follow my wishes for my body to be dumped in a national park for the wolves.
I was the person responsible in a small hospital for removing the eyes of people who wanted to donate them. These were carefully used to help others, when possible, and to further medical research.
Organ donation is good, and respectful opt-out policies are good as well IMHO. But no doctor is going to do anything if the family doesn’t want it. Despite Monty Pythonesque scenarios, people can and do change their mind at any time (until they can’t). And organ donation requires a lot of coordination, logistics, cold chains and expertise. Even if you sign the card, your organs probably will not be donated unless other things are aligned.
My evidence is the evidence that you didn’t opt either way in this opt out system. Presumably, you were given a form at one time, likely when you were renewing a government ID of some sort, and at that time, you chose to not check a box.
I am happy to allow for special dispensation if you weren’t provided with an opt out form at any time in your life. If you were provided with such a form, and you didn’t decide to opt out, you… wait for it… didn’t make the decision to opt out, and we have evidence of that.
Once you’re dead, you’re not a “human individual” that owns anything, and your property rights do in fact cease upon your personal expiration. Every last bit of property that you own transfers to your estate, which is not you and not a human individual even if it has some kind of legal status.
Huh? Seriously. What on earth do you mean by this?
No-one is suggesting killing people for parts (animals, at some point perhaps). Transplant teams have to wait for what Greg House calls “donor weather” (wet-weather motorcyclists make excellent donors… see below).
Brain-dead has been a legally accepted definition of “dead” for decades. Clearly really dead organs are no use, the body needs to be oxygenating and pumping blood to keep the useful bits alive.
I’ve been carrying a donor card* in my wallet for over 30 years. I guess I can free up a slot now.
- Although I don’t know how many of my body parts would make the grade. Corneas maybe?
And how exactly are you going to exercise those rights once you’re dead? Some kind of pre-death directive I presume, and why shouldn’t an opt-out be part of that?
All that’s changing here is the default potential disposition of some of your organs in the relatively rare event that you happen to match up, AND your family agrees to it (according to the NHS website, families will still be consulted). Basically everyone’s going to be asked to refuse, rather than assent.
Beyond that, you seem to be missing the fundamental point that those property rights only go so far. The state (in the generic sense) retains the right to do a lot of stuff that’s fairly one-sided- they can deprive you of your life if you’ve committed certain crimes, they can compel you to fight on their behalf, they can take your property in cases of eminent domain, they can require easements, etc…
Switching the organ donor program from opt-in to opt-out is small potatoes. I suspect that even if everyone were to not opt out, it would still be a relatively small number of people who end up donors.
And finally, it seems like an extraordinarily obstinate philosophical point to essentially refuse thousands of people potentially life-saving organs that can no longer be used, just because you are pissy about maintaining some sort of control over them from beyond the grave.
The notion that, in Smapti’s view, a cadaver has more rights than a living human in 1859’s Alabama did, invites dissecting (see what I did there?) which cannot appropriately done in this forum.
It’s not compulsory. You can opt out. So just do that. Problem solved