The following letter appeared in Wales on line and shows what good job SPUC's National HQ is doing! Deerstalker tip to John Smeaton's blog for this lead.
SIR – Members of the Welsh Assembly have rejected calls for people’s consent to organ donation to be presumed. Instead, the Assembly’s Health Committee wants potential donors to be encouraged to register their intentions.
The British Medical Association is disappointed. Regrettably, the committee has not completely ruled out so-called presumed consent, but in an age of twisted ethical logic one should be grateful for small mercies.
Our concerns regarding presumed organ donation is the risk that eager medics could hasten a patient’s death to get fresh organs for a person in need, well-intentioned but wrong. Earlier this year, a patient in Paris, presumed dead, revived as surgeons began to remove his organs. The International Forum on Transplant Ethics proposed that certain patients be given lethal injections so that their organs are in better shape for transplant.
Presuming consent isn’t the same as obtaining it, so it’s not really consent at all, and such a presumption effectively nationalises everyone’s bodies.
Some countries which presume consent actually get fewer organs than are obtained in this country where consent is still needed. While organ donation can be a generous act, none of us is morally required to do it and government has no right to require it of us.
PAUL BOTTO
SPUC Information Officer (Wales), Cardiff
The British Medical Association is disappointed. Regrettably, the committee has not completely ruled out so-called presumed consent, but in an age of twisted ethical logic one should be grateful for small mercies.
Our concerns regarding presumed organ donation is the risk that eager medics could hasten a patient’s death to get fresh organs for a person in need, well-intentioned but wrong. Earlier this year, a patient in Paris, presumed dead, revived as surgeons began to remove his organs. The International Forum on Transplant Ethics proposed that certain patients be given lethal injections so that their organs are in better shape for transplant.
Presuming consent isn’t the same as obtaining it, so it’s not really consent at all, and such a presumption effectively nationalises everyone’s bodies.
Some countries which presume consent actually get fewer organs than are obtained in this country where consent is still needed. While organ donation can be a generous act, none of us is morally required to do it and government has no right to require it of us.
PAUL BOTTO
SPUC Information Officer (Wales), Cardiff
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