Dear All

I am not in favour of the Presumed Consent for organ donation.

a.The Bill provides for organ harvesting, not organ donation, driven by a desire to acquire more organs to meet the perceived demand

b. Deemed consent is not consent.  Consent is the “express willingness or agreement” to a particular procedure.  To assume that someone has consented to something without any evidence that the person has so consented is to subordinate the wishes of the weak and the vulnerable to those of the strong.

c. The Bill supposes that some people have a right to the organs of others

d. The Bill assumes that the State has a prior right of access to the bodies of the deceased (who may not always in fact be deceased  -  see section 6  below).  Such an assumption by the State is arrogant, wrong-headed, and indicative of an authoritarian and non-democratic regime.

This move;

Abolishes organ donation as a free gift
Makes the body the property of the state
Does not necessarily lead to more organs available for donation
Presumed consent could be extended into other areas of medicine
Ignores serious concerns about current definitions and practices concerning death i.e. brain death, beating heart donors
Families will have no or a very reduced say in what happens to their loved one

Such a change would make the assumption that everyone is equally informed.

I understand that anesthetising is not always carried out when organs are removed, and that it is possible that the 'donors' are not really 'dead' and are possibly still able to feel pain.

Regard

Jacky Mattam