Oh dear, this story has raised its head again.Sometime ago I wrote about Nanny's plans to harvest the organs from dead people without their explicit consent.
I see that our beloved, unelected Prime Minister has waded into this "debate" and come out in favour of automatic harvesting of organs unless there is an explicit written opt out from the corpse or the corpses' family.
Here's why Nanny is wrong on this:
1 The state does not own our bodies, we do. It is up to us to decide what we do with our bodies.
2 The butcher's profession will be sorely tempted to call death early, if it sees a chance to harvest fresh organs
3 I don't believe in God, but some do; their religious views, as to what happens to their corpse, need to be taken into account in a civilised tolerant society.
4 Any attempt by the state, or butchers' profession, to take organs without prior express consent is theft.
The state does not own our bodies, we do!
Several thoughts;
ReplyDeleteFirst, does anybody seriously believe that, once in the hands of the bodysnatchers, anybody would try to keep you alive if you were the source of valuable body parts?
Secondly, does anyone seriously believe that 'opting out' would offer anybody any protection (Whoops, sorry we took his bits because we couldn't find an opt-out card. Shall we put them back?)
Given that Gordon has already talked about 'keeping records of numbers of donors from each hospital' (yet another league table), can you imagine that hospital managers would let a little thing like lack of consent keep them from fulfilling their targets - and thus getting reduced funding?
Burke and Hare, Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot were rank amateurs in comparison with our dear old Nanny.
I smell a new "quango" to oversee this new industry. I suspect it will have powers to fine....Kerching...as all government agencies and regulatory authorities do.
ReplyDeleteI am a religious person and I would choose to opt out of the scheme, but I do agree with Grumpy, can we trust Nanny? NO!!! of course we can't.
I suspect Nanny sees a dead body as a piece of waste that has to be dispossed off.....As it goes into a hole in the ground, I wonder if she will impose a landfill charge on it....Kerching....I read somewhere that Nanny was concerned about the heavy metal content in some old dental fillings and their enviromental impact should the body be cremated....Another charge perhaps...Kerching.
It seems to me that Nanny would prefer those unable to be "economically active" to be dead and "breaking" them for spares makes sense to her. You see, these spares can be used on other worker drones/taxation cash cows to ensure Nanny's hunger for more and more funds is satisfied...Kerching.
Makes you proud to be British doesn't it.
As per my book "Accountants Can Cook", I want to be made into a pate to be eaten by my friends.
ReplyDeleteDo you think Nanny will allow this?;)
Ken
I am dead against the opt out proposal (pun intended). However I don't believe the argument that they would call an early death on someone or make less effort to save someone in order to harvest the organs. The medical profession are in the business of saving lives. That's fear mongering (something I've seen this very forum name and shame). This argument actually harms the current 'opt in' policy. Would you volenteer you're organs if you thought somebody would pull the plug on you before your time? This is deeply wrong Ken.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the proposal doesn't remind me of theft, it reminds me of rape. When talking about this issue I draw the comparrison of having an 'opt out' policy for women who don't want to be raped. For me it's just as an insane idea.
The answer is simple.
1. More promotion of the need for organ donors.
2. Less slagging off of hosptals, doctors and nurses. I personally hold them in the highest respect.
3. More promotion of science and technological advances in general.
I do normally like your forum Ken but in this case I believe you have the right point of view but the wrong way of getting to it.
Ken refers to: “…our beloved, unelected Prime Minister”.
ReplyDeleteOn the basis that one doesn’t need to be elected to be Prime Minister these days, a petition has been created at:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open
calling on the Prime Minister to make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister.
It’s justified on the basis: “Jezza is [a] legend and deserves a chance to run the country.” which seems as good a reason as any to me, and given that it’s currently ranked fourth in popularity out of 8239 petitions, others seem to agree.
PS Sorry Ken, this is my last attempt at unashamedly hijacking your web site. Be assured, any future attempt will be laced with copious amounts of shame.
Jamie:
ReplyDeleteI believe you are wrong on this one.
People can still hold the medical profession in high esteem and be against organ donation.
You are proposing that the state owns your body after death, this is morally wrong.
There is a need for more organs I agree but it is how the state goes about getting those organs that is wrong. If people choose to donate organs, that is their choice, but the state should not force it upon those of us that choose not to.
I believe you example of "opting out of rape" is ridiculous. Rape is a crime and no right thinking person believes it is right to rape. Taking organs against the wishes of people is an invasion of privacy and wrong in my view.
Many of us have strong religious beliefs that mean we find the whole concept wrong. Should we be forced, along with our relatives, to disregard all that we believe in.
You may not be a religious person but you should respect those of us that are.
Like so often is the case in this country, a few people that shout loud have their personal agenda implemented to the detriment of everyone else. Other examples include climate change, gay adoption and civil partnerships.
tonk says,
ReplyDelete"....I read somewhere that Nanny was concerned about the heavy metal content in some old dental fillings and their enviromental impact should the body be cremated....Another charge perhaps...Kerching."
You may well be right about charges, but I suspect they will be associated with the cost of removing fillings (particularly gold ones) for 'recycling'. If it was good enough for Adolf, it's good enough for Nanny.
I wish I could agree with Jamie when he says, "However I don't believe the argument that they would call an early death on someone or make less effort to save someone in order to harvest the organs. The medical profession are in the business of saving lives".
Given that - in one hospital bed - there is some old dear about to snuff it, but with a useable organ and - in another bed - some younger person who needs the very organ currently sitting in, and about to perish with, the old dear; and given that the medical team has failed to meet its monthly transplant target; do you not believe that even the most dedicated medical professionals would not be tempted to help the old dear drift gently away - in order to save a life of course?
Jamie:
ReplyDeleteI've had experience of our 'caring' medical profession, and I wouldn't trust them to make a decision in my interests over some 'favoured' person who just happened to need a liver.
I also want a list of who my organs can be donated to:
Police and Fire officers, members of HM armed forces - Yes
Druggies, Ex Cons, muslims, butt monkeys or politicians - No
Robert the Biker
Tonk: Did you just crawl out of bed or something? What part of my comment made you think I was for the propsal of the state owning peoples bodies after death?
ReplyDeleteOf course rape is wrong. That's my point. A body belongs to the individual not the state. However I do carry a donor card and registerd online a coule years ago. That was my choice. And I don't care who it goes to either, police officer, drug dealer, Fireman, bank robber. I don't care! A life is a life.
It takes 5 minutes to register online so please do it now. Very few of us will have the opertunity to save a life while we are still living. But we can still be heros after we die.
Jamie (above) makes some good and valid points and we can certainly hope that all health workers have a patient's best interests at heart.
ReplyDeleteBut it is by no means guaranteed - Shipman being an obvious example that as far as I know had no alternative explanation of 'putting people out of their pain and suffering.
If all doctors were perfect in a perfect environment there would be few if any malpractice claims. They are only human.
This is a matter of a system which should be designed to 'fail safe'. If in doubt leave alone. Which is what you support.
To not raise the concerns, as Ken and other have done here, myself included, is to assume that the State also has the vested interests of the population at heart. Quite a dangerous assumption.
Further more, and I have said this before though it may not be popular, an organ transplant is a privilege not a right. We do not NEED, to quote your comment, more donors. Need might imply that the human race will disappear unless people donate organs. This is very unlikley and indeed the opposite may be true in terms of genetic development, though that is equally unlikely. But we don't know.
Hospitals are, generally, not the places they should be. Quite how such an expensive system should end up that way is unclear. Clearly the people within the system are unable (or unwilling perhaps in some cases due to measurements?) to improve it across the board. Hardly a strong argument for relying on them to do the right thing with organs.
Promotion of genuine science (if only the education system prepared people to understand it) would be nice. But people seem to prefer pseudo science. Technological advances are fine once they have become mature but very easy to militate against and often seem to exist mainly because they can be done.
Equally we seem to have many who believe that salvation for human ills leis with technology which does not exist - like the so called carbon sequestration systems for power stations.
So if one's leaders are of a mind to support non-existent solutions as the future for the country in the immediate future how much faith an one have in any of their other scientifically oriented opinions and actions?
Brown is sending out a desperate SOS message that he hopes will be popular with most people who, above all, fear death without really thinking about it seriously. It is the action of a man who has no policies to speak of and heads a system which is very short on politics at the moment. That is always a dangerous mixture in my opinion. (Though active politics can be as bad in its effect at least it offers something partisan to debate! Brown is trying to propose things that he hopes no one will debate for fear of being labeled as morally callous.)
Larry Niven forecast all of this more than thirty years ago in his Known Space stories about Gil the Arm.
ReplyDeleteIt's all there, three traffic offences and off you go to the organ banks. Organleggers are big business, albeit criminal.
Tonk
ReplyDelete" Rape is a crime and no right thinking person believes it is right to rape. "
Have you read the uncreated word of Allah recently?
Sir Henry:
ReplyDeleteI did say right thinking people:-)
Jamie:
I apologise if I misinterpreted you; I read "against the opt out" as saying you believed that people should not be able to opt out of it, therefore giving the right to the state to harvest my organs.
Aye Tonk, I realised that some time after writing the comment. And you were, of course, entirely correct.
ReplyDeleteKen said...
ReplyDeleteAs per my book "Accountants Can Cook", I want to be made into a pate to be eaten by my friends.
Do you think Nanny will allow this?;)
Ken
If she does, then I predict your funeral will be less than well-attended by your 'friends' Ken. Unless you're thinking of inviting over a tribe of S.American rainforest cannibals to the proceedings? ;ob Dog
Jamie:'And I don't care who it goes to either, police officer, drug dealer, Fireman, bank robber. I don't care! A life is a life.'
ReplyDeleteEven 'lowlife' presumably?
Have you noticed how every year we seem to run faster & faster, trying to devise more & more complicated proposals for keeping more & more people alive at greater & greater expense.
ReplyDeleteIt’s now reached the stage where my bodily organs are in the spotlight.
Why can’t we just accept that (within reason & avoiding extreme positions) there is a natural time for the Grim Reaper to arrive. A time to turn blue in the face, keel over & say: “So long”, “I’ve had a good innings”, “Hasta la vista, baby (or not, as the case may be)”.
I prefer to live life to the full in the ‘here & now’ while I still can, but when the time comes to pop my clogs I’d prefer just to go quickly without any tubes, drips or life-support systems.
As per my book "Accountants Can Cook", I want to be made into a pate to be eaten by my friends.
ReplyDeleteDo you think Nanny will allow this?;)
Only if you comply with food labelling regulations and have your salt and saturated fat content tattooed on your arse first!
Folks,
ReplyDeleteNot to sound too paranoid, but I think this is the thin end of the wedge.
Before too long it will be a given that Nanny owns your organs.
What is to stop Nanny from saying for example,
"Hmmm, this 10 year old who is in for an appendectomy has two kidneys. We have a patient in ward 3B who needs a kidney transplant."
See where \I'm going with this?
Simon
ReplyDeleteYes.
But more to the point: see where THEY are going with this.
"My talented little darling needs a heart. Your little scrote is only going to turn into a troublesome yob anyway, so ... "
Sir Henry,
ReplyDeleteYou and I would be accused of being paranoid.
I can't believe the shiite you Great Brits put up with, over there.
I was there last month and I'd say the place is a fascist police state.
Don't mistake my comments as being hatred of the Great Brits.
I find it hard to believe you put up with this shiite from Nanny.
Regarding an earlier comment about taking a quick way out without drips and hospitals etc.
ReplyDeleteLast night's Horizon showed a splendid new invention that can be used for executions, killing animals and euthanasia.
Breath in argon and nitrogen, you die very quickly with a sense of euphoria. They tested it on a pig, who happily continued to munch apples as he was done to death.
Myself, I will use a box of pain killers and a bottle of gin/vodka when the time comes.
Given Nanny's restrictions on buying pain killers, best to stock up over the next 40 years or so...just in case!
Ken
Sir Henry Morgan said...
ReplyDelete"But more to the point: see where THEY are going with this.
"My talented little darling needs a heart. Your little scrote is only going to turn into a troublesome yob anyway, so ... " "
Ah, we can soon stop that with a little induced paranoia! It's all the rage these days ...
It is of course a WELL KNOWN SCIENTIFIC FACT that recipients of organs genetically inherit some of the personality traits of the donors ...
Would YOU take the risk?
Need I say more?
A quick phone call to the Daily Mail should fix THAT little worry.
Grant said:
ReplyDelete...:Ah, we can soon stop that with a little induced paranoia! It's all the rage these days ..."
Just because you are paranoid, does not mean they are NOT out to get you....
Quite so Simon the Horrible.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is with our Mr. Brown, after a few minutes of thinking about his latest public fantasy yous tart to wonder what he is doing that he is NOT telling you about behind you back.
When in his previous role his party trick seemed to be to announce some government spending scheme, usually announcing it several times along with other things in order to make the total 'spend' look much larger than it could ever be whilst at the same take shafting us for some sort of tax that we were never really told about - they just sort of appeared.
Having got the tax the parallel spending amount, even that part of it that could be supported by the new taxation, seemed often not to happen but the extra tax take disappeared somewhere.
I always wondered where ...
Subsidising gold sales perhaps?
Keeping cronies happy?
Paying farmers in other EU countries?
Investing in China?
Who knows.