From: bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray)
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty
Subject: Re: interesting [and scary] blurb...
Date: 31 Dec 1992 06:55:28 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
Reply-To: bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, eeb1@quads.uchicago.edu (e elizabeth bartley) says:

>In article <1992Dec23.203126.21825@newstand.syr.edu>
>greeny@top.cis.syr.edu (J. S. Greenfield) writes:
>
>>Well, I'll need some more convincing that this is a terrible thing.  I'm a
>>little iffy on the idea that one has too many rights after they are dead.
>
>No, but I think I have a right *now* while I'm alive what's to be done
>with my cadaver once I'm dead.  Since I'm not repulsed by the idea of
>my body being carved apart once I'm no longer in it and I don't have
>any religious beliefs requiring my corpse, I've chosen to donate my
>organs.  But NO ONE has a right to tell me I must.
>
>>In any case, this proposal doesn't really remove anyone's rights.  It just
>>changes the default when one doesn't specify how they want things to be
>>done after they are dead.
>
>Can't you see the vested interest here in not finding out that the
>person didn't want his organs used?  Can't you see the vested interest
>here in making it difficult to properly say that I want my corpse in
>one piece?
>
Yes.  But you have no reason to suppose that it would be difficult.
>
>>This strikes me as similar to changing the law regarding inheritance when
>>someone dies intestate.
>
>Yes -- similar to changing the law to say that when someone dies
>intestate the state gets everything.
>
>Gee, Harry remarried and didn't realize that made his old will
>obsolete -- his wife and kids get nothing.  Gee, the state government
>has decided that the will's invalid and they get everything.
>
Apples and oranges.  The human body after death has no intrinsic value.
>
>>Considering that there is a rational purpose, and this *doesn't* revoke
>>anybody's rights, I'm inclined to believe that the proposal is reasonable.
>
>I think I have a right to not have to run around state offices getting
>little pieces of paper in order to have what my religion demands be
>done to my body after my death.
>
Why do you suppose it would be so complicated?  
>
>>So tell me why I should think otherwise.
>
>Read Larry Niven.  He illustrates this slippery slope marvelously.  I
>especially recommend "The Jigsaw Man", a brief short story of his.
>
I've read the Jigsaw Man.  Scary.  But again, you are comparing apples
and oranges.  Larry Niven was describing a society where people were 
deliberately killed in order to obtain their organs...through the
means of prescribing the death penalty even for minor offenses.  Niven is
a good writer, and the story was effective, but I've always felt that
the premise was very far-fetched.

It is also fiction.  We are talking about real life.
>
>-- 
>E. Elizabeth Bartley           |        "This is a world of compensation; and
>he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave.  Those who deny freedom
>to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long
>retain it."    - Abraham Lincoln
>

-- 
******************************************************************************
The opinions expressed by the author are insightful, intelligent and very
carefully thought out.  It is therefore unlikely that they are shared by the
University of Iowa or Case Western Reserve University.
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,talk.politics.guns