My Body - Free, For A While Longer ?

Get your grubby mits off it !

Amid the doom, the gloom and the ever-expanding tentacles of the State comes a little ray of sunshine. The Organ Donation Taskforce has come out against “presumed consent”.

Many of the blogs so hated by Hazel Blears (including this one) launched a tirade against presumed consent when our Prime Minister said at the start of the year how much he liked the idea. Now this taskforce, led by Baroness Howarth of Breckland (I’ve no idea who she is but I’m in love with her already) has rejected it.

To any libertarian, the idea that by default the State has ownership of one’s body is utterly repugnant. If I want to donate my organs after my death that’s my affair, but the Scottish Stalinist should not have first dibs on them. Nor should I have to fill in a form and hope that the government is efficient enough not to leave it on a train / in an airport terminal / in a pub car park just so that I can keep my body in tact.

The findings of the Organ Donation Taskforce are not binding on the government, so it’s entirely possible that they won’t listen and that they’ll just press ahead with presumed consent anyway. A little battle has been won , but Brown might yet try to force through the nationalisation of our organs. The fight must go on.