Actually the person above specifically suggested it could also be mandatory, as this were an equally palatable option.
So it was mostly that suggestion that I was responding to. As to the negative tradeoffs in that option -- I think they're pretty obvious.
(Hint: we'd have to in effect force members of certain religious to at least formally disavow that aspect of their religion, for one).
As to opt-out, while of course different, it's still in the same (troublesome) territory as the 'mandatory' option -- definitely a major insult to people with strong personal or religious convictions about the issue. At the end of the day, it's inseparable from the idea that your body is, on a certain level, state property.
Which, aside from being repugnant to many people, is also in conflict with the emerging social consensus that, by and large, one's dominion over one's physical body is absolute and inviolable† -- which just so happens to form the legal and philosophical bedrock behind the idea that one should be free to choose to terminate a pregnancy; as well as (in the case of terminal illness, at least), the manner and timing one's own death; and of course, the manner in which one's body is disposed;
The same should naturally hold for the disposition of one's organs after death. We would never think of passing a law making, say, chemical dissolution the default disposal method for your body after death, unless you "opt-out" and choose some other method -- even though this is touted to have many environmental benefits. Nor would we think to propose that, by default, your body be served up for whatever experimental purposes the local university might have in mind (unless you "opt-out", that is). It'd just be way to repugnant to many people, and open up too many cans of worms ethically and legally.
So the organ donation issue is basically right in the same territory.
† Aside from proscriptions against controlled substances, of course. But that's just one of the many schizophrenic negative tradeoffs of that particular policy.
Someone who appear brain dead at first glance, their family might be pressured to turn off life support to take out the organs, to give to another person in the same hospital.
If that first glance was mistaken and the person was in a coma that could recover months from now, then basically a man was killed for his organs.
It is highly unlikely that the recipient is in the same hospital. The ER team who oversees the brain-dead person is not the same team who handles the organ transplantation. The docs who treat the patient with a failed liver aren't the people who decide where the organ(from the deceased donor) goes.
This is a myth that needs to die. Doctors don't 'let someone die' because they are an organ donor. There's a complex system in place to regulate the distribution of organs.
This is a utilitarian-ish argument. I would consider the following questions:
- Who owns your organs before death?
- Who owns your organs after death?
- I assume you are opting-out from a government mechanism for organ donation. What is the origin of the government's power to claim your dead organs unless you opt-out?
3. The origin for the claim is that you accept to give your organs, and it is that way by default in a lot of countries because most people either don't care or actively want to save lives. If you don't want to give them for whatever reason, you can always opt out
I would also like to point out that this whole point seems like debating for the pleasure of rhetoric : there is no specific downside to having organ donation opt out by default, as a lot of countries do, for example France since 76. And if you don't agree with organ donation, just opt out. There is, however, a huge upside : saving a lot of lives.
