Organ donor opt-out scheme 'treats body like spare parts'

Published on Friday 21 March 2008 09:26

AN opt-out system for organ donations risks treating people's bodies like a "collection of spare parts akin to a used car lot", according to the Kirk's official magazine.

Senior politicians, including First Minister Alex Salmond and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, have indicated they support a change from the current opt-in system for donations to one of "presumed consent" where doctors work on the basis that organs are available for transplant unless the individual has specified otherwise.

But an editorial in the latest issue of Church of Scotland Life and Work says: "There are many who feel that government interference in our lives is already excessive and ownership of the body with its Orwellian undertones is a step too far.

"The prospect of our bodies which have been 'the temple of the soul' being a mere collection of spare parts akin to a used car lot and wholly owned in death by the government is abhorrent."

But Lothians Labour MSP George Foulkes, who has led the campaign in the Scottish Parliament in favour of the move to an opt-out system, said the magazine's comments showed a complete lack of understanding of the issues.

He said: "The proposals would include comprehensive safeguards for those wishing to opt out and also give surviving relatives the final say. It is really sad that if the Life and Work view were to prevail, many people would die needlessly."

In a separate contribution in the magazine, Edinburgh elder and former Kirk Moderator Alison Elliot also voices reservations about the opt-out idea.

She writes: "To gift your organs, probably to a stranger, is a solemn and important decision for anyone to make and a person should be enabled to make it with dignity and after due consideration. If we begin to think of people as a useful source of transplants, this could cast a shadow over the trust that is a key element in the relationship between doctor and patient."

But Kate Milne, an Edinburgh grandmother, who had a liver transplant almost 18 years ago, writes in the magazine in favour of presumed consent. She argues families should not have to be asked to give permission for a transplant at their most vulnerable moment.

"The family of the young man who were asked and who gave permission for their son's liver to be donated, which enabled me to have the gift of life, are above and beyond any praise or gratitude, but all families who are asked the same question don't give the same answer. This is why I believe presumed consent must be the way forward."