From: pat@rwing.UUCP (Pat Myrto)
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: interesting [and scary] blurb...
Date: 28 Dec 92 18:43:03 GMT
Organization: Totally Unorganized

In article <1hlvrpINNq6c@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray) writes:
>
> [ ... deleted ... ]
>
>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...given the fact that the vast majority of your fellow citizens
>indicate that they *do* wish to donate.  But I would never dream of requiring
>anyone to donate who did not wish to do so.

Read: Make it very difficult to NOT donate, by having default action unless
one searches high and low to give the STATE the rights to your parts as
desired...  One would have to have their wish not to donate tatooed on their
forehead to have any assurance of compliance... even then, the doc might
have selective visual difficulties...

>The discussion is not at all parallel to the gun control arguments since, as
>previously noted, dead people do not have civil rights.  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.

You seem to almost be saying that because a dead person has no rights,
the living person has default ownership of what the dead person has to
harvest, if the parts 'fit' via the STATE and the medical God committees.
If that is indeed the law of the land, it would suggest that the wishes
of the person who died are to be ignored (because the person no longer
has any rights) if it is for the 'Greater Good(tm)'.  If it is up to
the persons estate, this would suggest that those without relatives or
bux to have lawyers create a document that would not be checked upon
till its too late, have no realistic avenue to withold their parts for
WHATEVER reason.  Perhaps it is some religeous belief that they won't
go to paradise if they are carved up to pieces.  Such a basis for
overriding a person's wishes, or making it very easy to 'accidentally'
override them (just don't check TOO hard before carving them up).  That
would tend to dovetail with the overall philosophy of areas with lots
of paternalistic laws such as gun bans, safety this or safety that
required, or we will kill you, etc. (one's safety is really enhanced
when tossed in the jug, with the promise of up to deadly force if one
doesn't come along like a good boy...), right? And even then I suppose
the knife wielders would say 'Golly-Darn. I didn't see the notice ...
oh, well...'

Sure seems to be a tendency to say 'because I think this is a good idea,
I wanna make it default for everyone, regardless of their beliefs'.
What ever happened to leaving it to the PERSON to decide what is done
with their carcass, rather than the STATE?  *THAT* should be the default.
One should not be required to go thru a bureaucratic mill to be LEFT
ALONE. (I know, a very unfashionable viewpoint these 'enlightened' days.)

It also makes one wonder if a person was KNOWN to be a donor, and a part
is KNOWN to be needed close by NOW, if that declaration of being 'really
dead, dead' would be made a bit sooner than it would be otherwise.  I
really doubt if it would ever get out of the operating/carving room,
but I do wonder if one has ever had the docs start carving on them, only
to find that they aren't quite as dead as they thought (perhaps via a
last gasp as the cut out the heart...)  Yeh, I know its a very low
probability, but is it ZERO?  And would one's soceo-economic status have
any effect on the determination (is joe nobody carved up a bit quicker
than Mr Big Shot, who isn't declared dead till rigor mortis sets in?)

Just some distressing thoughts about this eagerness to glom onto someone
else's parts almost before they have stopped breathing...

Maybe THAT is why so many groups wanna ban guns except for criminals and
cops - more parts in the parts bin courtesy unarmed victims ...  :-)

<couldn't resist...>

-- 
pat@rwing.uucp                                  (Pat Myrto),  Seattle, WA
                      If all else fails, try:
         ...!uunet!{pilchuck, polari}!rwing!pat
WISDOM:    "Travelling unarmed is like boating without a life jacket" 
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,talk.politics.guns