Our bodies do not belong to the state

M Johns

"Habeas corpus" literally means "you shall have the body". Not in this sphere you shouldn't.

Simon

This is just the sort of thing The Spectator should be campaigning on. I hate to exagerate the case (for a change) but where does it all end? In the removal of gold fillings to fill the coffers? A grotesque comment perhaps but the principal remains the same. In my mind this all ties in with the alarming growth in calls for euthanasia too. The state has no business in these areas.

Jack R

How about this (unoriginal) thought? - None of us should be allowed to receive a donated organ, unless we have each agreed to donate one. Isn't there a basic social reciprocity and fairness in that, which could/should be incorporated into one's philosophy? It would be difficult to enforce the principle legally, I suppose, but the notion has moral force. OK, you can opt-out of donating, but you thereby are not entitled to receive an organ.

David Boothroyd

Legally the position in English common law is that a corpse cannot be owned by anybody. The argument against presumed donation is a fundamentally irrational one and it would benefit its adherents if they acknowledged that.

Hugh

So, just to be clear, you're saying it turns that Polly Toynbee is wrong?

mart

You make the point well. I would put it thus: presumed consent is a contradiction in terms. How interesting that this should be identified as a left vs. right issue. Can it be that everyone on the left has an instinct to view the state as benign in all its activities? I wonder just how many people on the left Ms Toynbee is really speaking for.

Greg Tibbs

To be slightly pedantic.. "Locke’s notion of “self-ownership” is not absolute: we do not accept that you can sell yourself into slavery," .. neither did Locke.

John

I've been shocked at how un-nuanced the debate around this issue has been. A lot of normally sensible centre-right blogs (this one included) seem to have lost all perspective and launched into full 'The Left think the state owns our bodies' mode. A move from opt-in to opt-out is little more than a shift in emphasis - yet I keep reading columns that seem to see little different between the opt-out and full-on enforcement with no choice. If we die under suspicious circumstances, there's a presumed consent that the state can slice up our body to find out what happened. As with the presumed consent of organ donation, this is done for a greater good - to save lives in the case of the organs and to potentially catch murderers/detect foul play in the case of the autopsy). I'm not sure there's that great a difference with this. That said, I'm torn over the whole issue. I'd just like people to recognise that this isn't as simple as evil-statists vs. liberty lovers.

Verity

Jack R - Singapore has had this system for around 20 years. This proposal is vile and it is not the government's business to "presume" anything on my behalf. Sale of organs, as much as it may grieve the old-style commies governing this overmighty state to turn to a capitalist solution, must come. I have absolutely no interest in my corpse being plundered to save someone else's life. Sorry, but I just don't care. If I knew that my heirs and assigns were going to get paid (at a market-determined rate; not what a komittee of apparachiks determined), I probably wouldn't mind. But only to a private hospital. Not the gruesome NHS. It boils down to what others have said on this and the previous thread, the state does not own its citizens. The citizens own the state. Gordon Brown can die without a care. No one would want to plunder his body on a bet. He has a genetic defect, doesn't he?

Jack (Leatherhead Matters)

Iaccept there are philosophical issues around this sensitive subject but, I am much more concerned about the the context within which "presumed consent" would operate. We now have an NHS which is rife with targets. The Government have introduced incentives tied to achieving target outcomes. So picture this…..a hospital trust has a poor ranking in say deaths from liver failure or, kidney failure or, any other organ failure. You are admitted to hospital in a coma following an accident. After some weeks or, months there is no evidence of recovery but, you do have healthy vital organs. You are a very expensive patient to your NHS Trust, who also happens to be short of say, kidney organs. Think of the organisational pressures to let you slip away. Incentives work….that’s why organisations use them. Has the Government & the NHS thought this through???? What do you think?

verity

Jack (Leatherhead Matters) - You only "slip away" after they have taken your organs out. Organs start to degenerate the minute you die, so they have to get them while you're alive. They inform your weeping relatives that you are, sadly, "brain dead" - except "brain dead" doesn't mean - uh - dead. Proof is that before they get the scalpels out, they give your "brain dead" body anaesthesia. Why would they give anaesthesia to a corpse?

William

John, the difference would be, in my view, that it could be safely be 'presumed' that you would like your murderer caught (in the event of foul play) so a post-mortem is essential to establish this. It can't be presumed that you would have wanted your organs donated. In any case, in Scotland at least, the family is asked prior to a post-mortem if it extends solely to establish cause of death or if it's acceptable to also remove tissue/organs for medical research (not for donation). There is simply something very uncomfortable about Gordon Brown harvesting the nation and there's no getting away from that.

Nicholas Millman

This is just another example of New Labour using sledgehammer legislation to crack a nut. Introducing yet another law impacting 60 million to save 1,000? Where is the balanced, reasoned view? I agree wholeheartedly with Verity. Instead of yet more intrusive, plundering laws why doesn't the Government seek instead to incentivise the existing voluntary donation? And those who bleat "What's the problem? Just opt out" have, like the government, not thought this through. The bureaucracy and legal minefield implicit in this stupid idea is a nightmare in concept, let alone in implementation. Coercion, compulsion and intrusion are the basis of all ideas from this government and mighty fed up with them we are.

Recusant

Just two points: - It has been known since 1996 that there is not a shortage of organs for donation in this country, but there is a catastrophic lack of coordination of donated organs to those in need. Surgeons have been asking for this from central government for a long time, why haven't they done anything? This will just create a pile of unused organs unless the coordination issue is solved. - Why is it assumed that the state 'owns' my body and that I have to opt out to prevent it harvesting it on my 'death'? We will not have to wait very long before we read and hear about the first scandalous 'mistake'.

John

William - It's still a means to and end. We can presume that you'd want your murderer caught and wouldn't mind having your body cut up to do so. How is that different from presuming that you'd like a sick person to live and wouldn't mind having your body cut up to make that so?

Travis Bickle

You'd just better not be in hospital in the near vicinity of any MP or VIP needing a transplant who you happen to match with. Collaterol damage and all that in our increasingly big brother state. However, like everything else that comes out of Brown's mouth these days, nothing is likely to happen within the 2 years when he wants to con everyone that he has some sort of vision.

Tiberius

This proposal is just another example of why Brown needs to be out of office as soon as possible. He characterized Cameron's idea of increased benefits for married couples with children as unchristian. Well this "presumed consent" idea characterizes Brown as Dr. Frankenstein-lite.

Verity

John - your argument is based on a chimera. "How is [the presumption that we all agree that autopsies are a good thing] different from presuming that you'd like a sick person to live and wouldn't mind having your body cut up to make that so?" You think that everyone plans to be a good little soldier of the socialist dictatorship, but this is incorrect. I don't. And frankly, the assumption that I'd like a sick person to live by having my organs sliced out is incorrect. I might will my organs to someone of my choice, as in a needy family members, but the world at large will have to get by without my help. My body doesn't belong to the state and it is no part of the state's remedies. May I also introduce the fact that transplants won't be around much longer as growing new tissue is being developed like a house of fire. Small things that would have formerly required a transplant are now being replaced, or improved, by growing new tissue instead. The greedy transplant industry will go the way of the coalmines.

Lee Griffin

Recusant: Transplant figures show that there are only some 3500 organs donated a year, while over 7000 lie on the waiting lists. I don't know what you're referring to with 1996, but there is clearly not an abundance of organs around.

Charlie T

Though I`m strongly anti state I was actually pretty relaxed about this idea until I read Toynbee`s latest toxic screed. Now I`m having my doubts. She seems to think its another front in the statist war against individual choice and personal liberties rather than for the public good. If so then count me out. The idea that Toynbee and her ilk are in way shape or form pro life is a sick joke. Whatever the subject every one of her articles is a shriek of hatred against anyone who has the temerity to differ. Incidentally why do you refer to this bile filled individual by her first name? (I Guess your being gentlemanly) It makes me think of the way Livingstones apologists habitually call him Ken presumably in order to make out he`s a man of the people and whatever he's doing is unquestionable good.

A J Scott

I thought-perhaps mistakenly-that organs of persons over ?60 years of age were not aceptable for transplant/replacement purposes. Is this not the case? And if it is, may I sue the Government for ageist discrimination? that is, harvesting my remains for no purpose?

D Lewis

I can't believe how pathetic you and all your ideas are. None of you are seriously debating this argument just your hate of the government. Let's just hope that you all get to stay in your little bubbles and that you and none of your nearest and dearest ever need a transplant. As someone else said if you aren't will to donate you shouldn't receive, but I bet your views would change then am I right?

Tiberius

D Lewis: perhaps if this government actually did something which enhanced the freedom of the individual in this country, criticism of it would not appear so reflexive.

Verity

Well said, Tiberius! All hail! D Lewis - almost everyone here has addressed this question seriously in the context of an overly authoritarian and presumtuous government. For this authoritarian government to assume domain over the corpses of the newly dead is an affront and goes against hundreds of thousands of years of the mankind's humble respect for the dead. [Before some uppity point scorer leaps in, I realise that this universal tradition does not normally include military enemies.] I have also noted that this is an interim technology and will gradually be supplanted by new tissue growth.

Max Kaye

While I'm totally on favour of organ donation, I abhor the notion that the state has any ownership over me or my body. I have already made arrangements to have my dead body turned into cat food.

Nicholas Millman

D Lewis: yours is the kind of hysterical and emotional response that this government thrives on in order to continue its oppressive knee-jerk policies and laws. You seek to deny any debate by presuming your view is the correct one and holds the moral high ground. Any dissenting view can then be disparaged (as you have done here) as wrong-thinking and against the interests of society as a whole, therefore anti-social and invalid. It is a characteristic New Labour and Leftie response used for many years to discredit and undermine opposition. Tiberius' reply is right on target.

christina

This action if passed in law will ensure that I opt out of any donation I may have made. This dictatorial Dictatorship of a Government do not own me body and soul.

Verity

Christina, what sends chills down the spine is, they think they do - and they are positing this propostion as though it were perfectly reasonable. And there are posters here arguing the case that the government can reasonably assume these rights. They are prepared to sacrifice their corpses, which their survivors may love and not want harmed, in the cause of government hegemony over every aspect of human life. In any non-delusional country, the citizenry has hegemony over the government. But not in Britain. Not any more. They would not dare mention such a proposal in France.

Fergus Pickering

I read smewhere that the reason (or one of the reasons)they have so many more organs for transplant in Spain is that they, driving like continentals as they do, have so many more road deaths, thus supplying the organs of healthy YOUNG people, not useless old farts like me. But then my wife says they might well want my kidneys at any age. Frankly I don't trust either the government or the doctors who are so fond of telling people that 'at their age' they should expect to be ll in various ways and shouldn't clutter up the waiting rooms etc etc.

Heywood Yerbloemie

I'd like to donate my moral compass to a Cabinet member. It looks like they need it more than I do; and, frankly, I'd probably do better in modern Britain without mine.

Midge

Having read everybody's opinion I now feel quite content that I am not being obstructive in my personal view that the government are really only trying to make NHS figures balance and maybe a few bucks from any surplus organs which they may be able to sell elsewhere. Never mind anybodys true feelings. I am aware of "opt out" but what of those who struggle with reading, writing, disability wether it be mental or physical and can't get to grips with their options, who will explain and help these to decide?

Paddy Briggs

Oh dear what a lot of spleen on display. If you don't like the idea then opt out. Not a tricky philospohical or moral dilemma is it?

Verity

Paddy Briggs - You employ the typical, infantile socialist tactic of basing your post on something which has no basis at all in fact. Since the advent of blogs, we have become yawningly familiar with this easily identifiable trait. The only spleen displayed above is that seen spurting out of angry socialists who resent the rest of us getting up on our hind legs and declaring that we own ourselves - and that includes our own bodies. I have not seen any conservative, rightist spleen at all. Perhaps you'd care to point out the posts to which you refer? All the irrationality and anger comes from leftist commenters. Midge, I think your generic "what about the children?"i.e., the weaker members of society, approach does not address the issue, which is an over-mighty government assuming ownership of its citizens. I see it as an issue on which Gordon Brown could be pursued and wounded as there is no defence.

K.G.Rolfe

I have always been in favour of organ donation, "but" it must always be up to the individual to decide or his/her relatives. If this is brought in I will very definately OPT OUT in total disgust.

Alice

Verity, am I to presume that if you, or a loved one, were in desperate need of an organ to save your life, you would refuse it? Paddy, I absolutely agree

Verity

Alice, you appear to have failed to follow the argument. No one here is arguing against transplants. We are arguing against the presumption of an overmighty state that it owns the citizenry. And that it can command how their bodies are disposed of. So no, Alice. You are not to so presume.

Alice

I appreciate that is what the main discussion is, but thank you so much for clearing it up for me just in case. However, in an earlier post you made this statement, "And frankly, the assumption that I'd like a sick person to live by having my organs sliced out is incorrect. " so I was simply enquiring.

Verity

"And frankly the assumption that I'd like a sick person to live by having my organs sliced out is incorrect." The clue is in the word "assumption". Over-mighty governments make "assumptions" they have no business making. The government is the servant of the citizen, not his master.

Nort

What about someone in hospital seriously ill but with lots of functioning organs still in good nick. Wouldn't there possibly be a temptation to hurry things along for the greater good? Euthanasia will probably be the next, complementary, piece of legislation

Hilary

I have to agree with some of Verity's earlier statements about organ donation. It seems to me that those who would like to take the organs of our dead relatives are rather coy about what the actual procedure involves. The donor may be "brain dead" according to the tests carried out on them but they are still living, breathing human beings when their organs are removed. There are plenty of people who can't understand why "old uncle Geoffrey's" organs weren't taken when he was lying dead on the slab in the mortuary, no surprise when organ donor campaigns such as this shy away from telling the general public exactly what's involved. Also, given that the organs of a healthy "brain dead" person could save the lives of 4 people I'm not sure I would trust a hospital to be working in the interest of myself or my relative. The family should still have the last word on donation.

Verity

This whole organ donation thing is very dodgy. There are nightmarish stories in the United States and, given the government's gruesome eagerness to "harvest" bodies, I am sure here too. Except, as the health service is nationalised and beholden to the government for its budget, I am not confident that bad news gets released. Some may remember that parts of journalist Alastair Cooke's body was "harvested" illegally in the United States, which filleted him as he lay in the funeral home. (His only living relative, his daughter, knew nothing of this.) The bones of corpses are ground up and used in dental implants. Mr Cooke, if I am correct,died of bone cancer. And before you say "It can't happen here", the same human butchery company that "harvested" Mr Cooke's cancerous bones was selling pulverised human bones to British medical establishments. I believe the Americans closed that company down when all this came to light, but they are not the only ones operating in the twilight of body parts.

Paddy Briggs

Verity I can only hope that private medicine will rescue you - you are beyond the care of the NHS.

Verity

Paddy Briggs, I wonder what you mean by I'm "beyond the care of the NHS". Because they have too many infected wards? Too many deaths and too many lawsuits? This care, I don't need. I pay to see a specialist and he/she gives me 40/45 minutes of their time in a consultation. This individual may order tests. I can go to the lab immediately, with the doctor's note. I (not the doctor) can pick up the results within a few hours, and those results are my property. Because I paid. And even after I take them to the doctor/specialist who ordered them, I take them home with me to put on file or to take elsewhere. They're my property. I am not in a vast system with over a million employees and government ministers interfering in the interface between me and the doctor/specialist. The doctor orders a test. The patient goes and takes that test, often on the same day because the laboratory is also private and is market-oriented. Paddy Briggs, listen and learn. Private healthcare works. There is no excuse for draining NI payments out of taxpayers without giving them a choice as to where their healthcare contributions go. Open it up to private healthcare companies - same NI contribution, but the person directs where it should go to.

Nicholas Millman

Paddy Briggs: yours is the classic Lefty response of attacking the person rather than the argument. Must be something wrong with Verity because she does not share your views. Send her to the re-education camp! This debate has absolutely nothing to do with a person's willingness - or not - to donate organs. It is about the State's right to presume ownership and control over them. By proposing this idea Brown has already transcended the notion of voluntary donation and free will.

ReHeated

Voluntary donation is better than forced donation, but how to create more of it? I posted on my blog about "forcing people to be free". I'd really like to hear your thoughts on it: http://reheated.wordpress.com/2008/01/13/the-problem-with-automatic-organ-donation/

Nigel Wheatcroft

If the State will own body when I die,will the State then pay my death duties and pay for my funeral?

David

Few would argue that the solution is appropriate at all if other methods have not be tried... but GPs have not been given bonuses to raise it with patients, contributions to their funeral costs could be given (small compared to to the transplant cost), etc. They jusn't don't want the hassle. Indeed if you read carefully you will find that the main reason to it prevent the doctors having to have difficult conversations. They have hardly tried yet. Convenience is all this about. Too lazy to try doing it properly (let alone paying a market price)

Steve

I am just wondering why there is a shortage of usuable organs. I have just spent an hour or so doing a spot of number crunching based on the 2001 census, and the 06-07 morbidity rates for England (so the numbers will not align up perfectly but they will not be miles out either) In the 20-54 age group (I beleive that the over 55s are not normally used) some 42,000 people a year die Of which 1/4 are voluntary donors, so that equals roughly 11,000 sets of organs (so going at 1 liver, 1 heart, 1 pancreas, 1 set of lungs and 2 kidneys that equals 65,000 voluntary donated organs) up for transplantation per year, even if half of these sets of organs are beyond use (unlikely in my view) that still leaves 5,000 sets of organs (i.e 30,000 individual organs) a year. If you couple this with a waiting list of 9,000 - where is the shortage of organs that this measure is supposed to address?

David Davis

This shows how far we have become the State's farm-animals, while we slept. Seat-belts. Smoking. "Healthy eating" (that's how it's promoted to our children while they are not in our presence.) The non-problem of "obesity". (Why can't the supremacist Nazis just come out and say that they don't like fat people?) Cameras everywhere. Energy police. Soon it will be supermarket-trolley-food police. We are rather on the back foot and there is not much time.

mark

One point that has not been made so far (I think), and I make this slightly (but only slightly) tongue in cheek - what about death-duties? If the state "presumes" to own my body when I die, then can I presume the state will waive the tax they also presume to take from my estate?? As posted by myself and others earlier -at a practical level it is the conflict of interest in the hospital that really worries me .

Nicholas Millman

David Davis: It is because the majority have remained silent and acquiescent while vociferous minority pressure groups have managed to influence the government agenda out of all proportion. Most of these groups are run by do-good zealots on a moral crusade, aided by self-publicising MP's, determined to interfere in the lives of others, and moving from one cause to another. Yesterday it was smoking, today it is fat people, what will it be tomorrow?

Chloe Ter-Berg

I've been trawling through this forum for arguments for a debate for my french oral A2. I've got lots of great ones, thankyou for that, though I have to say i've come to the end and am feeling incredibly frustrated that people like verity really exist. Whilst yes, you did make some valid points, the way in which they were delivered is atrocious. It comes down to this. Verity, you are an absolute snob. Your ending comment about private healthcare pretty much sums it up. I am not a 'typical socialist dictatorship loving lefty' in any way, but I definately agree with Paddy Briggs. And do you know what? he made me laugh. Something that not one of your 10 comments did for me. Lighten up. Life's not that awful, the government's crap, yes, it probably always will be as long as power crazed politicians from the left, right, or wherever continue to be a part of it (I am also not an Anarchist). Stop living in intense paranoia and hatred about the governments next move and actually live your life. I could be completely wrong about you, and sorry if I am, but its the impression I got from every single one of your wall posts. And the fact that you managed to make sure you answered any bulletin opposing yours. That's all.