Well my take on all this is that a person has a reasonable right to decide on what happens to their property after they die, within as I say, reason of course. I mean I can't say in my will that I want my car to be parked in the middle of the motorway and left there forever or that I want my baseball bat to be used to bash in my neighbours skull, there are obviously limits, but the fact I don't get to have literally whatever I want done with my possessions after my demise doesn't mean I shouldn't have any say.
My stance is that I should have the right to decide if I want to leave my car to my nephew, or my collection of 16th century Objet d'art donated to an animal sanctuary or have my huge fuck off pile of money cremated with me. Like my next of kin may have grounds to contest or whatever but I think it is reasonable for a person in a society like the one I live in to have a say in what’ll happen to their belongings after they die. The fact I won’t be around afterwards to take issue is not something that completely dismisses that to my mind.
And since my body is just a possession of mine, as far as I’m concerned I should have just as much expectation to have a say in what happens to my body after the inevitable, as I do my money or my baseball card collection. Therefore if I say I want it buried or cremated, with all the juicy organs within intact, I think I should have just as much a right to expect that to be respected as if I say I want my money to be used to buy the most expensive gravestone my estate can afford. And I think it’d be just as wrong for the government to go “nope, this stiff’s money would be better served being donated to a homeless shelter” or “this guy’s organs would be better served being cut out and crammed into sick people who need them” under the rational that “pffft, he’s dead so what does it matter what his wishes were? The greater good is all that matters.”
And I do think having your corpse buried un-organ-harvested or burnt is a reasonable request. No one else has a right to your innards if you don’t want them to and have expressed a desire against that. You’re not depriving someone of anything they were owed, since you never owed them that. I don’t have to let my money go to a charity if I don’t want it to. Same deal.
Now, this is still a hazy subject since in this case I’m dead and even if the government decides to go against my wishes, technically no one is being screwed over. BUT, if I have a next of kin who now become the “owners” shall we say of my most prized possession i.e. my body, and either wish to respect my wishes to not have my cadaver go under the knife or in the absence of any clear wishes decide for themselves to not allow any organ chopping to take place, then as far as I’m concerned it’s not even a question anymore.
You have the right to decide what to do with your property. Again within reason of course. If Uncle Steve dies and I’m his next of and only kin, I get to decide. I can’t do whatever I want with his corpse of course, I can’t have sex with it, I can’t leave it out in the middle of the street to rot, but I do have a right within reason to make a choice of what to do. And I think burying or burning his remains with all the insides inside is a reasonable thing to be within my choice. And to the argument of “but that’s not doing anyone any good, there’s sick and disabled and dying people over here that could use Uncle Steve’s organs that’ll now just go to waste”, I’d just say “so what?”
I don’t owe those people anything. I’m not obligated to them. I don’t have to do good. I’m not under the burden of only being allowed do what someone else thinks is a worthwhile use of my property and if by their standards it’s not good enough they’ll come and take it away and put it to good use.
The God of the Church Of Forced Altruism may indeed be an angry deity but not everyone has to be one of his followers. If I have a summer house I only use once a year for 2 weeks, and the government comes along and says “well we’re gonna let a homeless family stay there for the rest of the time since you’re not using it” I think I should have a right to say “No! I don’t agree with that. It’s my property and I don’t have to allow that. I don’t owe that family anything.” Or if I have a stockpile of food in a shelter I’m saving in case of an alien invasion and an alien invasion ALONE, and as such the food will just remain down there till it goes past it’s sell-by-date and rots, so the government says “look the food isn’t going to do anyone any good down there, you’re reasons for keeping it are silly, so we’re just gonna take them and donate them to a homeless shelter”, again, NO! You don’t need to prove to other people that what you’re doing with your property is good enough of a reason to be allowed to do so. It’s your property.
As long as it’s not hurting or harming or interfering with anyone else’s rights. And no, the inaction of not letting sick people have your deceased next of kin’s organs isn’t harming them. Any more than me not giving a homeless man money is causing him to go hungry or not letting them stay in my house is causing them to go without shelter. Not doing something you’re not obligated to do isn’t doing anyone any harm. It’s not on you. Now it can be, if you are obligated, if you’re say a parent who lets your baby starve or a doctor who lets a patient die when they could have easily intervened, but that’s only because the obligation is there.
If you’re not obligated then you’re not causing harm. And you’re not obligated to give strangers your dead relatives organs. You’re simply not. You don’t need to justify why you’re not letting them, you don’t need to have a good enough reason to convince Daddy to let you keep your toys, which is why I think bringing religion into it is silly, you get no extra points for basing your desire on religious grounds than you do on any other ideological systems, and you don’t need to, your reasons for doing so are your own. It’s your property so it’s your choice. Again within reason.
Now having said all that I do think it is a good idea to donate your organs or your next of kin’s organs after death, after all I MIGHT NEED SOME one day, and I must live, I think we can all agree that my life is more important than anyone elses’s. But I still say the answer is to convince people to sign a form or convince their next of kin to allow it. By talking with them. By explaining why it’s a good idea. By incentivising the concept, with I dunno cheaper insurance rates and discounts and whatnot. Or having the government give reduced tax rates or something. And if after all that, they say NO, well then that’s their choice. But it should come down to reasoning and convincing people, not just resorting to force. And honestly I think that’s why some people are in favour of using force to get what they think is the preferred result, because they have little to no concept of reasoning with people in real-life, of using words and ideas to get through to other humans, it’s not something they can comprehend so it’s easier to just skip it altogether and resort right to forcing people to do what they think is for-
And for others it's more of a play on the whole 'Might makes Right' thing, only it's more of a 'the fact I'm Right justifies the Might'. To my mind at least.
And that’s why even though I agree with organ donation, I know enough about human nature to expect people to react poorly to the idea of grieving parents being told it doesn’t matter they don’t want their dead kid hacked open and their organs removed, their reasoning for being against it isn’t good enough so we’re gonna do it anyway, NOW OUT THE WAY CRY BABIES, WE GOT SOME KIDDIE SLICIN’ TO DO!. Regardless of logic people would oppose such a system, and I’d back them on that.
Reasoning with people whenever possible, that on the other hand is the road. And incentivising people to do what you want of course- cheaper rates, lower taxes or whatever etc. if you sign up. Catch more flies with honey than with vinegar after all.
NOW, once again, having also said allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll that … I’m not an anarchist either. I mean I do think if you’re going to live in a society you need to pay certain prices for the privileges. Like taxes, you gotta pay them. You don’t wanna do that? Go live in the wilderness hippy and eat what you can catch. And as such I suppose a similar argument could be made for donating body parts as being equitable with coughing over a portion of your wages to Big Brother for the right to live in a country that has police and hospitals and candy canes and whatnot. But in this case I think it should be more of a- the government is entitled to a chunk of your corpse after your demise, type deal. Some blood or bone marrow or this or that organ. Fairs fair after all. Caesar gotta get his!
Not just yet, I'm still tender from before.