United Kingdom: Organ Grinder

Here's a piece from today's Telegraph:

Gordon Brown has thrown his weight behind a move to allow hospitals to take organs from dead patients without explicit consent. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph the Prime Minister says that such a facility would save thousands of lives and that he hopes such a system can start this year.

The proposals would mean consent for organ donation after death would be automatically presumed, unless individuals had opted out of the national register or family members objected.

But patients' groups said that they were "totally opposed" to Mr Brown's plan, saying that it would take away patients' rights over their own bodies.

There are more than 8,000 patients waiting for an organ donation and more than 1,000 a year die without receiving the organ that could save their lives.

The Government will launch an overhaul of the system next week, which will put pressure on doctors and nurses to identify more "potential organ donors" from dying patients. Hospitals will be rated for the number of deceased patients they "convert" into donors and doctors will be expected to identify potential donors earlier and alert donor co-ordinators as patients approach death.

But Mr Brown, who carries a donor card, has made it clear he backs an even more radical revamp of the system, which would lead to donation by "presumed consent". The approach is modelled on that of Spain, which has the highest proportion of organ donors in the world.

Interesting. Hospitals receiving a gold star from the government if they convert you into an organ donor. So on your next visit to a UK doctor, you might hear the words, "Everything appears to be normal. However, if you do kick the bucket, how about donating your kidneys and liver?"

Gordon Brown is playing tidy game, suggesting that people still have the right to decline being an organ donor. Notice that he wants you to explicitly opt out of the program. If you forgot to sign on the dotted line, then your organs are up for grabs. As for the "family members objecting," that sounds fine in theory. But organs must be harvested immediately after death. What happens if mom or dad don't pick up the phone in time?

Gordon Brown: Grinder Monkey
"Presumed consent" is a pretty abysmal term, but it matches squarely with the socialist/communist philosophy that there is no god beyond the state. The state represents all. The state has the right to take over your body once you are done moving around in it. Your body was never your own: you were merely borrowing it while on the temporal plane, and now your pieces belong to the government.

It makes a certain amount of Orwellian sense. The UK government could argue that the National Health Service has been taking care of you since the day you were born. You never had to pay a dime of your own cash, except in the form of taxation, and therefore it was the government that nurtured you and got you to a ripe old age. Now that you've expired, why should the government not take possession of the body that it cultivated?

Something to ponder the next time you get a free check-up.

Photo: REUTERS/Kirsty Wigglesworth/Pool