Dear Committee Members,

I am very concerned to hear that there are proposals for organ donation to change from being Opt-in, to Opt-out as this would actually have the unintended consequence of meaning that people’s bodies would effectively become the property of the State, and for the State to determine the future of, rather than, as at present, each individual being responsible for their own body; including having passed such responsibility to nearest and dearest at the appropriate time.

This proposal alarmingly also has the feeling of coercion trying to force people to do something against their will.  It smacks of China’s one child per couple type of dictatorial State interference.

I believe that there is also potentially a fundamental deceit going on here, as I understand that for organ donation to work, often organs are taken at the point where a person’s life is no longer viable, so that they may have effectively died but actually haven’t, since I understand the organs have to have been adequately recently alive in order to be viable as potential transplants.

Any scheme whereby citizens will be presumed to have consented to organ donation unless they file a formal refusal prior to their death raise serious ethical problems since presumed consent in effect equals no consent.  Organ donation should, in fact, be treated as a voluntary gift characterised by free will by the owner - not a statutory obligation/State takeover.

In conclusion, I say NO.

Yours sincerely,

David G. Meacock.