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Organs of UK Nuclear Workers Secretly Harvested; Energy Secretary Apologizes
fernlyn writes with word of a report detailing a decades-long practice of clandestine post-mortem organ removal from the bodies of dozens of workers in the UK's nuclear energy industry; Britain's Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has apologized to the families of those workers whose organs were taken without consent or even acknowledgement. Many of the organs taken were removed without any apparent forensic purpose in mind. Surviving relatives are understandably upset with what they see as cavalier treatment of their loved ones' bodies (even beyond unauthorized organ removal), such as the replacement of bones with lengths of broomstick.
the dead cannot own property.
http://www.SachaWheeler.com
For those who haven't, go to youtube, search autopsy, should be the first hit with 7 mil views.
As for the article, why do people still have any trust left in the goverment, it seems their purpose is to tax the ass of the people while at the same time violating their trust in all possible manners. And then they expect to get away by just going "oops sorry guys!". And often they do.
Organs and bones are harvested (and bones replaced by lengths of broomstick or pvc pipe). Due care is taken for these organs and they're being used to save lives, which is arguably better than just throwing them away.
The dark side of the whole thing is that a corpse is worth roughly GBP 200k-300k in spare parts, so ethics are out of the window and organs are harvested without the consent of the deceased nor those who stayed behind.
As usual, money is the driving factor here, so there is something you can do to stop this practice if you have objections to it: Sign up as organ donor. If there are enough organ donors, the law of supply and demand will take care of the rest and make sure this practice is no longer profitable, so it will cease to exist.
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The thought of people who would rather have bodies rot in the ground or be burnt into ashes than be used for something that could potentially help others (which I know wasn't the case here) is also funny.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
From TFA:
Ironically, had they been properly informed some would have agreed to the removal and analysis of the organs.
I would say yes, iIf someone asked me: "We think that staring at a computer screen reading Slashdot all day might be unhealthy. Would you mind if we grab a few of your organs when you die? This might lead us to better protection for Slashdot readers in the future." Harvesting organs without permission is just plain rude, crude and uncalled for. It's just not cricket; whatever happened to the image of the polite English gentleman?
Maybe they didn't ask because they were afraid that it would scare workers away, because of health safety concerns? But if the UK nuclear industry had doubts about health safety, the workers should have been informed about that, as well.
What other shenanigans are going on, which haven't been discovered yet . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
If you spent more than a week in Oxford and didn't notice how people are groomed and plucked for civil service then you were probably either not doing a relevant degree or were considered mediocre (in terms of both talent and personal connection). Sorry.
But I think you weren't even paying attention from the first pep talk at an open day. Or haven't noticed how much tutoring/advice is about knowing just the right thing at the right time, while lesser universities (ironically?) try for a broader approach. The institution is about making it easy for you to take particular traditional paths. Disagree?
Wait, were you talking about medics, lawyers, or politicians there?
My property goes to my heirs at my death. My body is my property. Stealing bits of my body is stealing from my heirs. No mystical crap required.
If the government chooses to take my body at time of death then it's a tax or confiscation of property from the heirs but the government generally has to disclose taxes or confiscations.
Empathy is for the living. Feeling empathy for a dead body makes no more sense than feeling empathy for a rock - both have the same level of experience. A cadaver is just a blob of matter that formerly housed a consciousness. It's no more important than the clothes the person wore or the house they lived in.
I've had close friends die, and I treasure their memories, but I have no superstitious respect for their bodies. The important part of them is the consciousness, soul, or software, or however you choose to describe it, and that's no longer resident in their bodies.
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"With all due respect, I believe you are being dishonest for the sake of argumentation."
Nope.
"Feelings towards loved ones don't just magically disappear at the moment of death."
I never said that they did. You should, however, care more about the memories of the person than the persons dead body which they will no longer have a use for. If it could be used to help others rather than just rot in the ground or be burnt into ashes, why not (again, I know that this wasn't the case here)? There's no sense to this.
"Unless you don't have any feelings to begin with, which is still a possibility. By being a psychopath, for instance."
I suppose being different is always a possibility, but I don't really fit into this criteria.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
[...]the organs taken were removed without any apparent forensic purpose in mind[...]
Dunno, sounds to me they weren't helping anybody with that...
Actually, in the UK, I believe that the body does not legally belong to anyone, the previous owner having departed. It is customarily left up to the heirs, if any, to dispose of it in a suitable fashion.
How long, do you think, it will be before human remains, complete or not, are declared hazardous waste and have to be disposed of by operatives in full hazmat suits?