Wednesday, October 14, 2009

More on the Crew of the Trojan Horse

Cass Sunstein
This courtesy of WorldNetDaily:
President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar defended the possibility of removing organs from terminally ill patients without their permission.

Cass Sunstein also has strongly pushed for the removal of organs from deceased individuals who did not explicitly consent to becoming organ donors.

In his 2008 book, "Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness," Sunstein and co-author Richard Thaler discussed multiple legal scenarios regarding organ donation. One possibility presented in the book, termed by Sunstein as "routine removal," posits that "the state owns the rights to body parts of people who are dead or in certain hopeless conditions, and it can remove their organs without asking anyone's permission."

"Though it may sound grotesque, routine removal is not impossible to defend," wrote Sunstein. "In theory, it would save lives, and it would do so without intruding on anyone who has any prospect for life."

3 comments:

Dan Florio said...

This is NOT to make light of the macabre possiblities of your post--quite the opposite--but it's just impossible for me at this point not to post a bit of script from Monty Python's hilarious yet horrifying scene from Meaning of Life entitled, Part IV: Live Organ Transplants:

(doorbell rings)

MR. BROWN: Yes?

MAN: Hello. Uhh, can we have your liver?

MR. BROWN: My what?

MAN: Your liver. It's a large, ehh, glandular organ in your abdomen.

(Mr. Brown stares)

MAN: You know, it's, uh,-- it's reddish-brown. It's sort of, uhh,--
MR. BROWN: Yeah,-- yeah, I know what it is, but... I'm using it, eh.

MEN: Come on, sir. (they grab him)

MR. BROWN: Hey! Hey! Stop!

MEN: Don't muck us about. (they search him roughly and pull out his wallet)

MR. BROWN: Stop! Hey! Hey! Stop it. Hey!

MAN: What's this, then?

MAN: A liver donor's card. Need we say more?

MR. BROWN: Listen! I can't give it to you now. It says, 'in the event of death'.

MAN: No one who has ever had their liver taken out by us has survived.


We need a little humor to make it through.
-df

Mike O'Malley said...

Cass Sunstein wrote: "the state owns the rights to body parts of people who are ... in certain hopeless conditions, and it can remove their organs without asking anyone's permission."

.

Benito Mussilini said: Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato" ["Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State"]

.


BTW: That is a excellent selection Dan. However in Red China the state uses mobile rapid response surgical vans to "harvest" organs from condemned (and occasionally not quite dead yet) convicted criminals and political dissidents.



... which reminds me I've got to find time to correct one of Gil's earlier posts in this regard ;-)

Rick said...

I volunteer Mr Sunstein heart and brain. I have every right since he's not using them.