Yeah, because ripping a lung from a living, breathing, actively objecting person is completely analagous to the surgical removal of no-longer needed organs from a DEAD person.
Frankly, some people revere the living about as much as you revere the dead. Let me ask you this: in your scheme, may we take their jewelry also? No need for those rings and necklaces to waste away.
Larry, or David? 
You can have my lungs when you pry them from my cold, dead ribcage…
Of course, then there was Monty Python’s meditation on the subject.
Personally, I don’t want my organs donated, because I can’t control to whom they would go. For instance, I don’t want my lungs going to prolong the life of a 5-pack a day smoker who’s gonna pick the cancer-sticks right back up as soon as he has new lungs and can get off the oxygen bottle.
I’m not sure how widespread this is, but there are certain requirements to get on some organ donor lists. About a year ago, my brother-in-law went into the hospital due to alcohol-induced liver failure, and we were told he was ineligible for the transplant list because you have to be sober for a year first.
I’m not sure why an opt-out process isn’t in place. I guess I could see the possibility of some people with religious convictions that require intact burials who end up dying unidentified, and concerns of religious officials about policies that would essentially desecrate their bodies.
Taking you seriously just for fun when I’m pretty sure you weren’t, IIRC the execution methods most commonly used (injection, electrocution, gas) render the organs unusable. I imagine we’d have to start doing more hangings and firing squads.
Let me get this straight you would rather your lungs go to nobody and just rot rather than possibly helping someone who has made life choices you disagree with? What fucking difference does it make to you you’re dead.
You would have still given someone a 2nd chance. Even if they do make the same mistakes why would you remove your organs from the world just because of this reason?
Why do double work? Just take their damn organs. That’ll kill 'em dead enough.
Rings and necklaces might be missed if it’s an open-casket funeral.
Gold fillings, on the other hand, …
Don’t be absurd. Jewelry, property, cars, homes, pets, and even the fuzzy blue pickle auntie Mildred liked to keep in the back of the fridge can be passed along to family or friends. How many people do you know who inhereited auntie Mildred’s kidney and keep it in a jar on their mantle? These are things that are going to be destroyed–burned or buried and left to rot.
Besides, if people so revere the dead that they can’t part with organs, then shouldn’t they also be burying all those trinkets and accumulated wealth with the body anyway? Who cares if they still have value or could change the life of someone left behind. They belonged to the deceased, dammit. Bury it, burn it, but never, ever share it, right? What’s the difference between stripping the rings from her fingers to finance your new home and stripping the liver from her corpse to save a stranger’s life? Oh yeah, the first is selfish and common, and the second is generous, loving, and all too infrequent.
Yes. We should also take their gold teeth, silver fillings, the pennies from their eyes, and the laces from their shoes. We intend to do nothing but subject peaceful, honest dead people to our tyrannical coercion.
For crying out loud, Liberal, have you no grasp of reality at all?
Why don’t you let other people decide what they do and don’t revere?
My Dad once donated an Automatic Organ. If you put a nickle in the slot, it played “Lady Of Spain I Adore You” over & over & over & over…which was probably why he was willing to donate it.
Did that help?
Wouldn’t providing the opt-out system allow them to do just that?
Who said you get to keep the loot? Give it to the bastards who spend our money anyway. After they’ve paid for their office buildings, their limousines, their own salaries, the salaries of their laywers, secretaries, gophers, and chauffeurs, their summer homes in Nantucket, and their fact finding junkets to Hawaii, they can stuff the rest into the Social Security trust [sic] fund.
No. Perhaps one day you can acquaint me with the thriving world of grave robbery.
Because I have a code of personal ethics that obligates me to do nothing to support life choices I disagree with. Since there’s no system for organs analogous to a will (“I leave my lungs to a needful non-smoker…”) I’d rather no one get them than someone who’s just going to waste them.
Well, how do you do a fool-proof opt-out system? Not everyone has a driver’s license or state ID. Would the consent of next-of-kin (etc.) have to be required? (And wouldn’t that mess with the whole concept of opt-out?)
Imagine if some (for example) elderly immigrant-turned-citizen from, say, Poland turned up in the hospital. Never got a DL, never bothered with a state ID, but had a Social Security card and other stuff. The patient dies soon after reaching the ER, and the doctors go to work to harvest the organs, still being unable to contact any relatives in time. A couple hours later, they turn up an adult son and pass on the news of his dad’s untimely demise. Upon claiming the body, he says “hey, he was Jewish*, you’ve desecrated his body!”
At least with the current system, you know you’re only taking organs from those who consent, even if occasionally well-meaning relatives fuck it up for that intended donor.
- Using this as an example only; IIRC I think not all practicing Jews believe this, but I could be mistaken.
Why wouldn’t the opt-out system work in this case? They know who he is, he’s a US resident and presumably had access to opt out while living so his name, which the doctors know, would show up on the no-harvest list. If a completely unidentified person, or a foreigner, or an illegal died in hospital, the default could be to assume they had opted out as a precaution against these kind of problems.
So just because a man has a drivers license, he should automatically be subjected to your scheme? Why not just let people voluntarily offer their organs for donation if that’s what they want to do?
No.
[ol]
[li]What do you do if you someone dies without ID? Assume they hadn’t opted out? Assume they had? Effectively, you’re not only mandating that those who opt out opt out, you’re also requiring that they permanently mark themselves as having opted out.[/li][li]How are you going to ensure that all people know of the opt-out system and have easy access to it? Unless you make an a census-like effort to have someone personally ask every US citizen (I’m assuming the organ-taking policy would apply only to citizens, and not just visitors?), pretty much any opt-out based system is going be class-biased: the lower classes aren’t as likely to be aware that the system now requires an opt-out, and may not know how to opt-out. Correspondingly, the members of the lower class that do know about the opt-out system could potentially be MIGHTY pissed, and rightfully so: given that they don’t have the same access to the health care system as the recipients of their organs will, they’re going to perceive a system that takes their organs and gives it to the more socially advantaged.[/li][li]What about the wishes of the potential donors family? The body belongs to them–unless the deceased made legally binding arangements prior to death, I’d argue that they should be able to do with the body whatever brings them the most comfort.[/li][/ol]