Not So Fast With My Organs, Maryland!

Reader comment on: Organ Donor Opt-Out

Submitted by Rachel Moses (United States), Dec 12, 2012 21:00

There are probably dozens of reasons to oppose Maryland's new presumption of the desire to donate one's organs in the case of a vehicular death. One is religious. At least one religion of which I am aware forbids the desecration of the human body after death.

The second is more practical and is the reason that my family and executor know that I will donate organs to others who may need them but that I have opted out of an automatic organ donation in the case of my vehicular death: if I die, or am in the apparent process of dying in a car accident, and paramedics who presume that my organs are up for donation may wish to speed them to the nearest hospital for transplant rather than speed me to the nearest hospital for recovery from my near-fatal accident.

Especially if such an accident were to occur when I was driving alone in my car, I do not want anyone who doesn't know my specific wishes to swoop in and start harvesting my various innards in the spurious belief that I'm done with them.

My family and executor will know when I'm done with them in far greater detail and and with far greater understanding of my wishes than total strangers eager to divvy up my spare parts and help others with them. I'm all for helping others, but not while there's still a reasonable hope that I can use the organs of which I've taken such good care for so long.

I hope that residents of Maryland will rise up to protest this odious presumption. But a state that defers -- as if to royalty in 18th century England --to government intrustion in the lives of its citizens in the form of Obama and ObamaCare is unlikely to question the state's presumptive right to its residents' organs.

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