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Imagine that tomorrow, through a series of unexpected and unfortunate events involving the collapse of the euro, some desperate eurocrats and a P&O ferry, you end up dying in hospitable. You will probably be looking forward to a quiet end as you depart this veil of tears, dignified in death, etc etc. You would be wrong; the NHS watchdog has called for your doctor to be legally required to interrupt your last moments. Your doctor should, according the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, ask whether after you're dead, he can have a rummage around inside to see if there are any organs anyone else might want. This is wrong. He shouldn't have to ask.
Compulsory organ donation may seem somewhat extreme but every year a thousand people die waiting for an organ transplant. That ghastly number, the number of those who die needlessly, is only increasing. They die because others neglect to do the right thing. Negligence is a crime.
As a society we accept that there are a lot of things the state can legitimately ask its citizens to do; they range from the annoying - not littering, to the angering - income tax, to the ultimate sacrifice of being conscripted to go and die for the country. Compared to these, allowing a pound or so of biological matter to be taken from after you're done with it, is trivial. It's not as if you even knew or cared about what they did for you in life; who knows what a spleen does? What sort of narrow boat sails down the renal canal? The point is that your body is no more yours than your house, your car or your iPhone.
There are three main objections to compulsory organ donation; freedom of choice, religious concerns and the ability of the family to say goodbye. I will deal with them all in order.
Firstly to the: "It should be my choice what happens to my body, it's not fair!" argument. Well, if we are going to bang on about "human rights", then the right to life trumps the right to decide how garbage is disposed of every time. The person dying next door has more of a right to life than you do to decide how to get rid of your body. Furthermore, you don't lay claim to the various bits and bobs that will eventually make up your body before you exist, so how can the same bits and bobs be yours after you've finished existing. How can "you" own anything if there is no "you"?
Some people don't like the idea of organ donation at all, never mind compulsory organ donation, because of religion. When we are all swept up in the rapture on judgement day, there could be a great deal of confusion if various people have got various other people's hearts, livers, spleens and so forth. However, it is perfectly acceptable in these religions for the body to rot into worm food or to be burnt to ash. If god is already turning worm and ash back into humans, he should be able to deal with some misplaced organs. At any rate, these religious believers are a minority - all six major religions care not a jot what happens to the body, it's the soul they're after. If we went around doing things because various small religious sects wanted us to, the world would be a very nasty place indeed.
As for the grieving family, the surgeons tend to do a very neat job nowadays. Quick slit down the middle, whack out any useful organs and sew them back up. Put a shirt on the corpse and mum/dad/brother/sister/family dog wouldn't even notice that the body's organs had been used to save a life. The family can hardly be given priority to the body over a dying child next door.
So, given that organ donation saves lives and given that there is no rational objection to it, it should be made compulsory. It is said that a dead man still lives while the effects of his life are still being felt. This way, if you have a particularly resilient liver or heart, you can live forever.
Stuart Bonar: Let's Put the Living Ahead of the Dead on Organ Donation
Douglas LaBier: How the Common Good Is Transforming Our World
Frances Kissling: Haley Barbour Breaks the U.S. Organ Transplant Act
Spain for example has presumed consent in place but the family are still always asked as well and Spain has very high organ donor rates. International organ donation data can retrieved be via-
http://www.transplant-observatory.org/Data%20Reports/Basic/%20slides%202010.pdf
We still need the family to assist with the donation process-
http://deb-verran.blogspot.com
Some of the surgeons who do the organ retrieval surgery are female
The actual retrieval surgery is actually not a quick short operation in many cases-particularly for something called the 'split liver' retreival-where the liver is surgically partitioned whilst it is still inside the donor-which can mean the whole organ retrieval process takes up to 5 hours
http://www.bmj.com/content/334/7603/1088.full
The vast majority would accept organ donation for themselves, their sick child, brother, or relative. If so, they should be willing to donate organs in return.
Why not allow those doctors who have struggled vainly to keep you alive ever since your birth to do their jobs?
I have a suggestion (equally absurd as compulsion) when we have a General Election, all those who choose NOT TO VOTE should have their vote added to the person representing the Government on their ballot....that is why the opt out option is wrong, because its UNFAIR. There are so many routes to OPT IN that the medics and donation people need to accept, THE MAJORITY do not want to donate...for whatever reason.
I do not understand your argument. You argue about "positive promotion" which already happens and fails, shown by 1000 people dying every year. Sticking to the old ways clearly wont help. You seem to argue that you do it freely, good for you, so do I but not everyone does. Therefore compulsory donation is clearly an option. If your point is you wont be able to feel good about yourself now that you're forced to do it, I fail to see why the government should allow 1000 people to die every year so that you can enjoy an ego trip of "look at me I'm helping people".
Also, your point of "force at any level of society almost never works" is wholly incorrect as the very definition of a state is "a body which monopolises violence and force". Think of how law works: I steal your stuff, I get summoned to court, I don't turn up, 2nd warning, 3rd warning, and the then ultimately the police kick down my door and drag me away....EVERYTHING the state does is backed with force, that's the point.
@JP23. Your analogy to a general election is flawed. The right to choose in a democratic society in an election is not comparable to the right to chose whether your bodily integrity can be violated after death without consent. One is constitutional and is about the legitimisation of rule, the other is about the law within an already legitimised state.
Utilitarianism: loss of autonomy of a dead person < Someone dying .... therefore people should have to give organs after death irrespective of consent.
Deontology: We have a duty to help others in society, so long as the benefits outweigh the harms. I have already shown in this and previous posts that this is the case, and therefore we should have compulsory organ donation.
You can talk about the duty to respect the rights of a deceased, however these are strongly qualified. You talked earlier about the body belonging to the executor of the will, and they can do whatever they like. This isn't entirely true. The body must be disposed of "according to law". My understanding is that in the UK, things like mummification, ritual disembowlment, scattering ashes without permission etc is unlawful, and therefore this beats your argument.
Virtue Theory: You're likely to feel good about yourself and help society if you're giving your organs when dead, therefore you become more virtuous, therefore virtue theory supports compulsory organ donation.
Equally in a rights argument. As Sam Walker said, the rights of the living trump the rights of the dead. The unqualified right to life must be protected, even at the cost of other rights, especially minor rights like "the right to bodily autonomy after death"
Given that we already use positive promotion but thousands of people still die waiting for an organ, we should move onto compulsion.
Organ harvesting via DONATION is the only way, any compulsion means it is NOT a DONATION but
something akin to RAPE. Very strong words I accept, but what is the difference? Both acts are/would be as the result of someones NEED over riding the other persons consent.
That there is a shortage of donors simply shows that the Public at large do not want to DONATE their organs, that is not to say they would be unhappy to receive an organ donation if they were unfortunate enough to need one. Selfish? Who knows, there are a multitude of genuine reasons for not registering.
THAT is another point, NOT registering...today the Government makes it EASY to donate organs...Driving License, Passport applications etc all have the option, so it is not LACK OF KNOWLEDGE or available forms, it is personal choice AND IT MUST REMAIN THAT WAY.
It is not unfair nor is it unjust, NO means NO.
To say that:"any compulsion means it is NOT a DONATION but
something akin to RAPE" means that taxation is rape, making kids go to school is rape - compulsion does not equate to rape.
It's true that some people don't want to donate but when other people are dying then we shouldn't have to take that persons preference into account, especially given that person no longer exists.
In LAW when a person dies, their BODY becomes the property of their executor, in much the same way as their WILL allows an executor to distribute their Estate in accordance with THEIR wishes, so the Executor has a duty to 'dispose' of the deceased in accordance to their wishes, position and chattels in life.
The deceased may no longer 'own' their body, but it is still a possession of the Estate in LAW and thus cannot and should not be stripped of its usable parts EVEN if that were in the public interest.
As for your other points.
Children go to school because they are minors and their parents/carers are responsible to ensure THEY comply with THE LAW.
TAXATION is merely the LEGAL way the STATE redistributes Citizens assetts to PAY for the running of the Country, not necessarily to the benefit of all, but LAWFULLY.
Taking something unlawfully that DOES NOT BELONG to you, whether it is an organ, sex, car, money is theft. Compelling an individual to give something up they would not usually be required to do is Stalinist.
Let's start with assumed willingness to donate, with the right to opt out. That alone would probably save the 1000 people a year who need donations.
On the other hand, my argument is more that if it were necessary, it would be morally right.
This is just a thought experiment, but....
Re morality: Imagine a rich person who wills that their coffin be made of pure gold, paid for from their own estate, despite there being starving people in the world. I'd agree that the morality is questionable, but the law would very much require that a golden coffin be built, wouldn't it?
If you rule that organs can be harvested against people's wishes to save lives, what does that imply about the laws of inheritance? If our children are wealthy must we leave our estate to the poor?