The BMA wants the state to take ownership of our bodies.
Doctors will try to persuade ministers at Westminster, Holyrood and Stormont to introduce an opt-out system for organ donation to prevent 1,000 deaths a year because of organ shortages.
The British Medical Association will lobby the three parliaments to follow the lead set by Wales, which in December introduced presumed consent for organ retrieval. Under this system people who die in hospital are presumed to have consented to their organs being used for transplantation unless they have expressly indicated otherwise.
It’s not up to them. Nor is it up to the state. It is up to each individual to decide while they are alive. Presumed consent is not informed consent. It is a nasty, evil idea. If they succeed, I will actively opt-out. It is no place of the state, nor is it the place of doctors, to second guess our intentions. If we opt-in, which is the only ethical approach, then they can have our bits. If we do not, they cannot assume that we agree. Indeed, they cannot and ethically should not, assume anything. By all means ask the next of kin, but to assume we have consented, to take the Welsh model is repugnant and deeply unethical. You want something that doesn’t belong to you, you fucking ask, you don’t take.
We have long since ceased to be individuals in the view of the PTB. When alive we are nothing more than economic units to be milked whenever and wherever possible; when dead, our organs can be harvested to maintain other economic units and to satisfy out-of-control egos. I wonder what “Soylent Green” will be called when it’s actually introduced.
We cannot tell them strongly enough that the state exists to serve the individuals within it. Individuals do not exist to serve the state.
There was a time when I carried a donor card. But I have grown so sick of being harangued and bullied by these people, I’ve become hostile. If they want my bits, they can bloody well ask. If they assume that they can have them without asking, then they cannot have them at all – and no amount of emotional blackmail about “lives saved” will work. They have only themselves to blame for my hostility. Organ donation is a gift, not a right and we do not owe it to anyone, let alone the state. We owe nothing to the state – unless you include utter contempt.
“…We owe nothing to the state – unless you include utter contempt…”
They’ve EARNED that:- certainly over the last few decades, if not longer.
As one of The Despised aka a smoker, I will now never consider opting-in to donation and will take steps not only to opt-out if consent is presumed but also to ensure via lasting power of attorney, health and welfare, that organ donation is denied – I wouldn’t put it past these people to lose the opt-out slip.