I WAS greatly relieved to read that the bill to make organ donation compulsory (which is what it amounted to, although its supporters would deny this), the Transplantation Bill, was defeated at Holyrood (“Organ opt-out system voted down by MSPs”, The Herald, February 10).
I completely understand that lives are transformed by organ donation, but it should always be an active choice made by individuals, not a decision made by the state.
My body is mine, to do with what I like. I have not yet decided to donate, but I would certainly have opted out if this bill had gone through, as in effect it would have meant that the state owns our bodies and can do what it likes with them.
This bill had good intentions, but to increase the power of the state to this level would be dangerous in the extreme. What next- banning people from abusing their bodies with alcohol, drugs, junk food and so on, so that they die healthy and their organs can be harvested?
Increasing the number of those who have made a free choice to donate is the only way to improve organ transplantation rates. Anything else is morally and ethically wrong.
Alan Jenkins,
0/1, 111 Helensburgh Drive, Glasgow.
YOU report supporters of Labour MSP Anne McTaggart’s proposed Transplantation Bill as claiming, inter alia, that an opt-out (presumed consent) system for organ donation “… will lead to an extra 70 [organ] donors in Scotland a year”.
Donation implies knowing and willing giving to others. Confiscation implies the taking from others irrespectively of their wishes (known or unknown). Thus of the 70 putative donors identified, some at least must be counted not as donating an organ but rather as having it confiscated by the State against their wishes unexpressed through a variety of valid circumstances.
This is an intrusion too far by the state into the liberty of its citizens and their sovereignty over their own bodies even post mortem.
Darrell Desbrow,
Overholm, Dalbeattie, Kirkcudbrightshire.
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