From: PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal)
Subject: Re: interesting [and scary] blurb...
Organization: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 03:51:54 GMT

In article <1hocmsINNsq8@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray) writes:

>In a previous article, PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal) says:
>
>>In article <1hlvrpINNq6c@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bradon D. Ray) writes:
>>
>>>In a previous article, PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal) says:
>>>
>>>>> Any attempt to mandate organ donorship
>>>>>>is easily an infringement upon my right to privacy, and I doubt any court
>>>>>>would upload such a law.  Actually, stating what States may not have my
>>>>>>organs and then having the federal government over-rule me may be an
>>>>>>infringement of my rights already, but I'll let the legal scholars ponder
>>>>>>that a bit.  All I want to do is put on the leathers and helmet and ride
>>>>>>this spring without Big Brother telling me I *have* to.
>>>>
>>>>>And, as I also previously pointed out, corpses do not have civil rights.
>>>>
>>>>       That's cute.  I think I'll file that in the same folder as the
>>>>phrase "Metabolically challenged."  *I* have rights, and disposal of
>>>>*my* body would seem to be one of them.
>>>>
>>>Sorry; you are mistaken.  Your corpse is technically the property of your
>>>estate, which means that in your last will and testament you have a certain
>>>amount of freedom over its disposition.  However, your options are severely
>>>circumscribed.  If your wishes were violated, the cause of action would lie
>>>with your heirs, not with you.
>>
>>       I thought that's what I said.
>>
>>       However, it would seem to me that upon my death, my body would no more
>>revert to the state, to this communitarian group, or to a hospital than
>>would any lamp, chair, or other piece of property that was mine in life.
>>
>The obvious answer to this is that your organs have no intrinsic value to
>your heirs or your estate, while the other items you mention do.

         Neither does my pocket lint, but that also does not go to state
control upon my death.  Intrinsic value is not a question here (although
religously it might) and whether or not an object has value is completely
irrelevent to the discussion.  Frankly, the idea that the government
(or some hospital) can decide something has "no intrinsic" value and
then repossess it is something I find more than a little disturbing.
         Having said that, it should be noted that blood relatives often
make better donors that non-blood relatives.  Perhaps they just wanna keep
me on ice until they need me.  :-)

> However,
>for the 50th or so time, THE ORIGINAL PROPOSAL SAID YOU CAN SAY "NO"!

         No, again, the original proposal was that the *burdon* of saying
no was on me.  That is, if, as another poster suggested, I don't have
"NO" tattoed to my forehead in bright red letters my organs are likely
to get harvested.  Exactly how hard *do* you think they're going to look
for a little card, anyway?

>>>>        So it becomes "We will harvest your organs if you do not search
>>>>high and low for the office where you can get a card from us that says
>>>>we won't be able to take your organs to help all these innocent people,
>>>>you evil greedy person, you."
>>>>        Or do you think once they've got the rights to your organs they'll
>>>>put too much effort into helping you take them back?
>>
>>>You make the process sound pretty ugly,
>>
>>        It is a pretty ugly thing to place the burdon of telling others that
>>your body does not belong to them on somebody.  And it has the possibility
>>of becoming even uglier.
>>
>>>but why do you assume that it would be
>>>any more difficult to get an organ-non-donor card than it is to obtain a
>>>durable power of attorney or an advanced medical directive?
>>
>>        In the first place, getting a durable power of attorney or an
>>advanced medical directive is a pain, and most difficult when somebody
>>doesn't know how.  In the second, the people all of a sudden in charge of
>>these non-donor cards would all of a sudden have an incentive to *make*
>>it difficult, because the easier it is, the less organs there would be to
>>donate.
>
>That sounds pretty paranoid to me.

            Sounds pretty paranoid?  Not really.  Not when there had been
scandal after scandal of rich hosptial "patrons" paying huge sums of money
to guarantee *their* kin (or themselves) a much needed transplant organ.
My mother did an indepth report on it once for the local paper where she
works, and I saw the research.  It happens.  What's worse, it would be
worse, because all they'd have to say afterwards is, "Oops, must have
missed the card while trying to save this poor little girl's life."

> It is not as if it costs you anything
>to donate your organs.

          Who are you to say it doesn't cost me anything?  Perhaps my
religion says it will cost me my place in paradise.  They're my organs and
it's my decision.

> But even so, you can say "no".

         I can say yes, too, yet you seem so unconfident that I will you
are prepared to demand a change in the "rules."

>>        Or do you *really* think all it would take is writing "I'm not an
>>organ donor" on a piece of paper and carrying it around with you?  Given the
>>legislative impulse of our government, *I'm* not all that confident that any
>>group who wants to lay claim to *my* body parts will stop with round one.

>Actually, I do expect it to be as simple as that.  There is no reason in the
>world for it to be any more complicated.

          No reason at all.  There's no reason in the world for a lot of
things.  Gosh darn, but don'tcha know the real world doesn't work that way?
Try and change the "rules" and Congress will add so many regulations and
restrictions and nonsense you won't be able to breathe.
          Plus, once having done so there will be great political pressure
to ensure it "works,", which means a dramtic increase in the number of
"donated" organs, which means they have a political incentive to make saying
no a difficult thing.  Then there's the incentive on the doctor's part to
"miss" your "no" card, which might have gotten lost anywhere along the way.


[Next paragraph kept for pathetic attempt to pretend this is on-topic.]

>>>>        (In order to make *some* referance to tpg) This sounds like a lot
>>>>of the gun control *compromises*, where what you're really getting is
>>>>the other side is deciding to "compromise" by not demanding as much from
>>>>you as they did previously.

[Now back to your regularly scheduled rant...]

>>>it usually
>>>winds up being one of several things the doctor or a nurse covers as they go
>>>hurriedly down a checklist of Things to Do When Someone Dies.  The situation
>>>is not very satisfactory for patients, their families or the medical staff,
>>>nor is this time a good time for delicate questions and discussions.
>>
>>        Oh, I see.  The hospitals get to lay claim to my organs becuase it's
>>too much trouble, and too sensitive a subject, to *ask* my family.  I
>>gush sympathy.
>>        And I'm curious why they didn't just require this question at
>>another, less sensitive time.  Perhaps because it might have worked, and
>>not given a good excuse to lay claim to my organs?
>>
>No, the reason is that it is not something most people wish to think about

          Somehow I don't have a lot of sympathy with their "not wanting
to think about it," when "their" alternative is to spare themselves and
salve their sensibilities with more organs.  Organ transplant is an ugly
subject, made all the more ugly by this "proposal."  If that offends people,
tough.  It took grabbing for my liver to get *me* offended.

>Dying is a very sensitive topic in this country; you may have noticed.

         I am not prepared to offer up *my* rights, or those of my heirs
to determine the disposition of my remains and property to protect the
sensibilities of someone who is doesn't feel comfortable talking about
death.

>[Also,]
>under the law it is required to confirm permission from the next of kin
>after death.  As I have already pointed out, this is the worst possible
>time to ask someone to make a complex, emotional decision.  You can throw
>all the petty sarcasm at that you want, but it is true.

           So, these people who are to distraught at having to be asked a
question about a dead body are going to feel that much better when they
find out Uncle Ernie has had his eyes, heart, and liver removed without
anybody even bothering to *ask* them?  *That'll* make the doctor popular.

>>>Yes, we won't force you to donate, but I feel it is not unreasonable to ask
>>>you to make an absolutely minimal effort to notify us that you do not wish
>>>to donate...
>>
>>         There are a lot of things one group of people doesn't think it is
>>unreasonable to ask another group of people.  The Christian Fundamentalisits
>>don't think it's unreasonable to ask everyone to live according to their
>>narrow view of the world.  The socialists don't think it's unreasonable to
>>ask everyone to live in *their* narrow view of the world.
>
>I am not asking you to live according to my view of the world.

          "Jump through these hoops or we own your body," sounds like it
to me.  Make the hoops as big and low or high and small as you like,
you're still asking people to jump through them like trained monkeys
in order to assert what should be, among all other things, assumed, being
ownership of their own bodies.

>I *am*
>asking you to sign one friggin piece of paper if you don't want this done.

           And all *I* ask is people sign one piece of paper if they *do*
want it done.  *I* don't think that's unreasonable, and *I* won't be
carving people into nuggets who haven't specifically said they want to
be.

>Given the strength of your feelings on the issue, that should not be that
>much of a problem.

           I might even have it tattoed on my rear to make sure, which
would be the *only* way to make sure.  I don't ask *you* to sign a piece of
paper saying your house won't revert to my ownership next tuesday, and then
expect it will if you don't.  By doing nothing, you gain *no claim* over
my organs.  Only with my *permission* do you gain any entitlement.  Your
trying to claim I have given permission unless I specifically object, and
that won't do.
           It is *wrong* and *dangerous* for the government to operate
under the assumption that you have given your permission for something
unless you get up and shout otherwise.  It allows them to take advantage
of that without asking you one way or the other.

>>         But so what?  You "minimal" effort still requires me to go out of
>>the way to prevent others from taking what is mine, or what is my heir's.
>>It would be entertaining to require that people get a card for every piece
>>of property they own to prevent it "reverting" to government control once
>>they died.  Why then are our bodies, arguably the one things above all
>>others that is ours, is so different?
>
>As noted above, there is no intrinsic value to your organs.  Your estate and
>your heirs lose nothing if they are taken and used to save the life of another
>person.  However, YOU CAN STILL SAY NO!

            You keep saying that, so I'll operate under the assumption
you believe it.  But again, so what?  I can say no, but why should I have to?
I can so no, but who will listen?  The doctor who has a terminally ill
patient in the next room?  The organ broker with the rich man waiting
to pay $250,000 dollars?  The political entity under pressure to make
everything "work?"
             If saying "no" can be made so easy, then saying "yes"
can be made so easy, with far less possibility of abuse.

>>>given the fact that the vast majority of your fellow citizens
>>>indicate that they *do* wish to donate.
>>
>>         Awww, they wish to donate, but just don't understand how.  They
>>wish to donate but just haven't been asked.  They wish to donate but it's
>>just to much trouble.  My heart bleeds for the poor, lazy people who would
>>donate if only someone came to their door with a donor card on a silver
>>platter.
>>         Explain to me how their laziness makes it right to harvest my
>>organs unless I jump through the proper legal rings to stop them?  (And
>>I will.  By god, I will.  I'm happy to donate when it's my choice.)
>>
>I have already explained it:  The donation costs you *nothing*.

         Sez you.  Based on *your* particular world view.  But it's
totally irrelevant whether it costs me anything.  This is not a cost/
risk assessment here.  This is ownership/entitlement.  My heirs own
my corpse, and you have no entitlement to it.

>And, as noted,
>the "rings" are very few, and are large enough to drive a truck through.

          Large hoops may become small ones, or disappear entirely.  That
is an easy thing to do.  The hard part is to put the hoops up in the
first place, which is where something must be fought.  "Reasonable"
restrictions have a way of becoming unreasonable.  And they are alwasy
"reasonable" when you don't object to them.
          As has been said many times in many different forums, and
restriction is a restriction.  When you have to ask someone else's permission,
you no longer own something.  There mere existance of your hoops make them
too small.

>>>But I would never dream of requiring
>>>anyone to donate who did not wish to do so.
>>
>>         Consider this.  If people are willing to donate, but just don't
>>becuase "nobody has asked," or "it's too difficult" how is it, then,
>>different for those who *don't* want to donate, but now for them nobody
>>is asking them if they don't want to donate, or that it's too difficult?
>>         Why is it ok, then, to change the rules to hurt them?
>>
>It hurts nobody.

         Again, sez you.  It might.  It might hurt their heirs and loved
ones to know their loved one has been carved up like a rump roast.

>Presumably those few people who are dead set against
>donating feel more strongly on the issue than do people who wish to donate...

          So naturally it should be their responsiblity to pay for those
too lazy to assert themselves?

>thus, they are more likely to go to the extremely small effort needed to
>withhold consent.

             Oh, because you think they will, better them than others
too lazy to?  Sound bases for public policy.

>>>The discussion is not at all parallel to the gun control arguments since, as
>>>previously noted, dead people do not have civil rights.
>>
>>         Neither do guns.  Perhaps they will just "arrest" my body for
>>"pollution violations."  My body, like my other posessions, should become
>>the property of my heirs, who, in the absence of any orders on my part, may
>>decide the disposition of, just the same as if I left them a gun.  Because
>>my body *is* a body does not grant the government greater claim.  Something,
>>just because it has no civil rights, does not automatically become the
>>property of the government.
>>
>And, as noted, your body has no intrinsic value, nor can your heirs use it
>to defend their home.  You are comparing apples and oranges.

           A gun is a lump of metal.  A body is a lump of carbon.  Whether
or not the government thinks *either* is of use to me is not the issue.
Whether the government thinks either will do my heirs any good makes no
difference, because that is a decision for my heirs to make, and not the
government.  The government does not get to go through my boxes of stuff
and keep whatever they decide my heirs can't use.

>>>And you can sneer at
>>>that all you want but 1.) it is true and 2.) I have yet to hear from you (or
>>>anyone) a valid reason why a dead person's "rights" should override those of
>>>a living person.
>>
>>         Whether or not the dead body has civil rights is completely and
>>totally irrelevent.  The absence or existance of rights changes not one iota
>>whether the government can lay claim to the physical posession of
>>something.  My car has no civil rights, but that doesn't mean I have to get
>>an attorney and sign special papers to prevent the government from randomly
>>coming to take posession of it at some arbitrary point.  If a body has no
>>civil rights, and it is just another piece of meat, then it becomes the
>>posession of a person's heirs, no more the property of the government than
>>anything else.
>>         And whatever "rights" a living person may have, they do not
>>include entitlement to any other person's organs, any more than they may
>>demand any other piece of property.
>
>Take a valium.

          Have a nice day.  :-)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Veal     Division of Continuing Education Information Services Group
               University of Tennessee, Knoxville
               PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,talk.politics.guns