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February 16, 2006
Our Organs Are Our Own
I appreciate the motivation, but the Ontario bill for “presumed consent” for organ harvestation is wrong for a simple reason: there should never be a compelling reason for the medical community to wish for someone to die.
I don't believe that doctors and other medical staff are going to see a presumed consent law and decide that they're going to work less hard to save Patient A so that they can harvest A's organs for B's, C's, and D's sakes: indeed such notions are likely beyond the pale for the vast majority of them. But the willingness for patients to seek medical help is contingent on the belief that the medical system will seek to save every patient possible without looking for excuses or incentives to do otherwise. Why force such a moral quandary on our doctors?
This old Steven Den Beste essay on the issue of harvesting organs from executed criminals, while not on the exact same topic, is an excellent analysis that guided my thoughts on this issue.
Posted by Kelvin at February 16, 2006 11:00 PM
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