This Blog considers assisted suicide/euthanasia, bioethics, human cloning, biotechnology, radical environmentalism, and the dangers of animal rights/liberation. My views expressed here, as in my books and other writings, reflect my understanding that the philosophy of human exceptionalism is the bedrock of universal human rights. Or, to put it another way: human life matters. (The opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of any organization with which I am affiliated.)
This could get ugly. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has supported "presumed consent" to organ "donation." And this in a country that also allows Futile Care Theory, particularly for those with "mental incapacities." The danger is obvious and acute, don't you think? I have written about the issue here, here, and here, among other places.
Labels: Presumed Consent
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 6:26 PM
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I am a Senior Fellow in Human Rights and Bioethics at the Discovery Institute and the author of 12 books, including A Rat Is A Pig Is A Dog Is A Boy, which is relevant to the issues considered by this blog.
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Check the comments left in reaction to this and related stories on the Telegraph website. They are running very heavily against presumed consent. Many posters note that the British government could instead be doing much more to encourage opt-in.
Others raise the question of why everyone gets paid for the organs but the donor. Some point to the provision to score doctors and hospitals on making organs available and see ominous possibilities (as I do). Will doctors who are supposed to try to treat and heal the sick instead look at them as a potential source of points from government donation watchdogs?
Governments, even the best-intentioned ones, are not exactly well known for adherence to high standards of documentation and execution of rules. Under presumed consent, abuses will certainly happen.
The elephant in the room is the global black market in organs. After presumed consent passes, if the National Health Service has excess organs with no suitable recipients within Britain, what will happen to these? Where will they end up, and who will profit? (And remember the scandal in 1999 over hospitals there having kept tissue from dead children for years?) It was easy to ignore this issue when South American newspapers carried hysterical stories of children's carcasses found in dumps minus their organs, but the recent news from China about harvesting those from executed prisoners should raise concern. Brazil tried presumed consent but had to scrap it over this and the population's widespread distrust of the medical system there.
We'll see if citizens across the pond get riled enough about Brown's proposal. I suspect, however, that it will be business as usual and will become law. Then it will spread here. And I'll make doggone sure I opt out. I don't want anyone else's organs either!
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