Monkeys and the organ minder
The complaining about Gordon Brown proposing an opt-out organ donation system is great. Selfish, pig-headed and self-contradictory whining is always a joy.
Needless to say most of the umbrage is coming from the Right. They might as well be saying ‘Gordon Brown can pry my liver from my cold dead hand’ for all the sense they’re making. They bang on about the ‘murder’ of foetuses by the ‘abortion industry’ but are seemingly willing to stand by and let walking, talking people die because their politics have been offended.
What it boils down to is putting your principles before the lives of dying people. And what’s more, you’ll be dead anyway and won’t even get to enjoy the smug satisfaction of putting one over on Gordon Brown with your clever principles. Because you’ll dead (did I mention that?).
Unless you believe in heaven, obviously, in which case I suppose you could look down and blow raspberries in Gordon’s direction. If they let, smug, selfish, gloating pricks into heaven, that is. And unless you’re expecting an Assumption, you can’t take your guts to heaven either.
It seems that these people would rather take their organs with them to the grave or the crematorium out of some kind of spite. Even more amusingly, others are signed up to voluntarily donate their organs and they’re still complaining. They’re giving their organs when they die but they’re still all ‘Wah! The state wants to own my body! Wah!’
You could sort of see these people’s points of view if there was an alternative use to which you could put a human corpse. I suppose some of the egos we’re talking about would quite fancy being stuffed and put in a museum but they have to take your guts out to do that anyway.
Anybody planning to have their sweetbreads turned into pate to sell for the benefit of their dependents? No, you’re going to have them burned or buried with you unless Gordon Brown extends a bloody claw and tears them from your still warm corpse.
I think this stems from two attitudes. The first one is that mature strand of reasoning that non-ironically equates the state with fascism. You see it a lot on the less fun blogs. Sure, it might be a good idea and think of the lives that will be saved, they seem to be saying, but it’s Gordon bloody Brown’s idea so it must be shit, the one-eyed mental nazi.
‘It strikes at our relationship with the state,’ they say. Well get this: You can’t have a relationship with the state when you’re dead. You can’t assert ownership over your own corpse. Why? Because. You. Are. Dead. What other freedoms would you like to exercise after you’ve shuffled off? I take it you’ll be putting your favourite songs on your iPod to take with you as well? It’ll be as much use to you as your liver.
Do you really not have anything else to worry about? I’m more worried about the horrifying, demeaning death I’m likely to suffer at the hands of the NHS than what they might do to my corpse once I’ve screamed my last.
The second attitude is the weird way we regard dead bodies in this country; that they are sacred relics to be cherished rather than the empty shells of people who have gone. It’s an idea you seen romanticised in films where the hero screams ‘Noooooooo!’ over the (beautiful) corpse of his deceased love.
Respect for the dead has always struck me as a strange idea particularly when you see how little respect we have for the living. The dead should have dignity we say, as if there’s any dignity in lying around stinking and farting (just ask Chris Moyles.)
Both attitudes are perverse in the extreme and reflective of the implicit (rapidly becoming explicit) immaturity that’s taking this country back to the Middle Ages at a dizzying speed. Maybe these people just haven’t been shown enough footage of cute ickle children dying for lack of available organs. With a Snow Patrol song played over the top. That should sway them, surely?
Update: I like this. What’s he going to do, come back as a zombie to stop them stealing his precious guts? Hunt the recipients down one at a time? How else to enforce this blogging bravado?
Update updated: Now cross posted at Liberal Conspiracy.
Posted on January 13th, 2008 at 11:00 am
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Filed under Miscellaneous misanthropy, UK politics |
I agree with almost everything in this well argued post but…
To be fair, Justin, 90% of people in the UK, when asked about organ donation, say they would be perfectly happy to have their organs used after death, so there is no widespread sentimentality about the dead amongst the population in general , indeed they seem on the whole to be pretty level-headed about such things even though only 20% actually go to the trouble of opting in.
Interestingly in Spain, where an opt-out system is in place (but where relatives are given the opportunity to veto organ removal) in cases where a British person has died and the (British) relatives have been asked permission for organ removal there has been 100% approval, whereas in Britain the approval rate runs at around 60%.
There is, seemingly, a huge psychological difference in asking people to make a positive decision to have organs removed from a loved one at the time of death compared to asking them to actively object to a procedure which would happen by default without their intervention. Something which, at any other time, 90% of them would probably agree to.
I agree with what you’re saying Justin. And I do think there should be an opt-out policy.
But at the same time, I kind of have to take exception to your concluding remarks about our attitude towards the dead.
The second attitude is the weird way we regard dead bodies in this country; that they are sacred relics to be cherished rather than the empty shells of people who have gone. It’s an idea you seen romanticised in films where the hero screams ‘Noooooooo!’ over the (beautiful) corpse of his deceased love….
Respect for the dead has always struck me as a strange idea particularly when you see how little respect we have for the living….
Both attitudes are perverse in the extreme and reflective of the implicit (rapidly becoming explicit) immaturity that’s taking this country back to the Middle Ages at a dizzying speed.
Here’s the thing; by-and-large the behaviour and attitudes you’re describing are displayed by the recently bereaved. And I wouldn’t disagree that our attitude towards the bodies of our deceased loved-ones is “weird” or “strange” or even “perverse”. What troubles me is your implication that it should (or indeed could) be any other way.
As someone who places a fair amount of credence in psychoanalytic theories of grief and bereavement, it seems likely to me that although we very quickly consciously accept the reality of the death of a loved one; it can take an awfully long time for this reality to be accepted by the unconscious mind.
So when the doctor suggests that your wife’s heart would be a perfect candidate for transplantation, your conscious mind may well understand and agree; but there’s a not insignificant part of you screaming “Are you fucking mad? Cut open my wife? I’ll cut you open if you even think about it, mate!” To the part of you that just hasn’t had time to process the death and indeed is desperately trying to deny it; the notion of organ donation may well be utterly obscene.
This does not make a so-called “principled” objection to an opt-out system any less ridiculous. But it seems to me that decrying our irrational attitude towards the bodies of those we love is like decrying our irrational attitude towards a lover who recently jilted us. It’s just a fundamental part of being human.
How’s about a bit of promotion from the organ people, ala the blood people. They’re always on telly all the time. Maybe a similar drive for people to take up donor cards would lead to a massive uptake.
Yes, Jim and Mike, I think I could have chosen my words a little more empathetically.
I’m fortunate in the fact - and in the highly unusual position - that I’ve yet to experience a bereavement at first hand - my last close family member to die was in 1980. I was nine and not really of an emotional maturity to process my grandfather’s death.
At this distance, most of this can be nothing but a thought experiment for me. And for myself, the thought of clinging to a body in the way that some people do - I accept under the most terrible of emotional pressures - is a repellent and frightening one.
I’m don’t mean to decry the emotional responses to a bereavement - I’m a sentiamental person prone to irrationality myself - it just seems to me that there must a ‘proper’ way to do it. A grieving for the presence that is gone, not holding on the to the empty token. I suppose I’ll have to report back when the inevitable happens.
I think we also need to factor in the grief-by-proxy that many people enjoy in this country. Whole cultural industries seem to be built on it. I wonder how many of the objections to these proposals is outrage on behalf of strangers, particularly parents losing children. Less an empathy but an intrusion on private grief for political point scoring.
I think we also need to factor in the grief-by-proxy that many people enjoy in this country. Whole cultural industries seem to be built on it. I wonder how many of the objections to these proposals is outrage on behalf of strangers, particularly parents losing children. Less an empathy but an intrusion on private grief for political point scoring.
You’re absolutely right but fortunately, when put to the test, most people react far more rationally than might be expected by reading the comments in the Telegraph or Mail. An opt-out system would help to overcome those emotional barriers that can make it difficult for relatives to agree to something they know was wanted by the deceased and indeed that they themselves would agree to at any other time. This is really a no-brainer. With overwhelming support from the general public what we face is not so much a debate as a long whinge from minority (and mostly religious) interest groups and lovers of the ’slippery slope’ argument
PS: I hope it’s a good long time before you have to ‘report back.
Even madder than the Samizdata thread (to which I tried to contribute a little sanity) is this wonderful example at the Libertarian Alliance.
New Labour New Cannibalism!!
I don’t think he needs to worry too much. Jeezus, have you SEEN de Havilland’s body?
Just an aside:
Interesting difference in the comments posted here and at the Liberal Conspiracy cross-post.
I honestly haven’t been and looked at the LC comments after replying to the first one. I’m not interested in arguing with right-wing yahoos on this and I’m amazed they want to debate with me.
I’ve yet to see a right-wing response arguing against this proposal which isn’t, frankly, moronic.
First we had, courtesy of Tony & George, a war on an abstract noun. Now we have a war to defend the absolute purity of an abstract concept.
Libertarianism: the answer to a question no-one asked.
http://www.smokewriting.co.uk
Given that libertarianism, at least in its blogging arm, is comprised almost entirely of privileged and well-paid youths pretending to be oppressed because they have to pay taxes, I don’t see any reason why we should expect any reason from them on this or any other issue.
Samizdata, indeed. Go and tidy your rooms, children.
“I’m not interested in arguing with right-wing yahoos on this and I’m amazed they want to debate with me.”
Tut, tut, Justin: I thought that we were all into debate in this here blogging medium.
ejh,
Good to see that bigotry’s alive and well at your end. You’ll not have noticed it, but this privileged youth complains most bitterly that the poor are taxed way more than the rich: the difference, I suspect, between us would be that I don’t think that the rich should pay more, but that the poor should pay considerably less.
Still, since we seem to be in the same area, perhaps we should avoid the argument and go straight to the chess, eh?
DK
Well, in this case, DK, it’s largely been a case of *who* I’m supposed to be debating with rather than *what* we’re supposed to be debating.
The people I thought worthy of my attention got my attention.
I agree, I think it’s an understandable but essentially irrational impulse. The whole point of an opt out system is that people can - erm - opt out. Like this, for example: Melanie Phillips - Organs of coercion
especially the line:
“Volunteering to donate your organs is one thing. Making it compulsory unless you opt out transforms an act of altruism into state oppression.”
And this: “Opting out requires an effort. Many will simply forget to do so.”
… of course the point is that if they forget to do so then they obviously don’t care that much either way. So surely if someone is apathetic about what happens to their body when they’re done with it, it makes more sense to save a life than to let someone die.
btw - Did you see the second comment on that Samizdata page? “The logical solution, of course, is to allow people to sell their organs for whatever price they see fit.” !!
Hey Justin,
It’s a rather delayed response, but just to let you know that I’ve put up a piece over at my place on this subject. I agree with your position, but rather criticise your “tone”, I’m afraid.
Organ donation, grief and a question of tone