October 13, 2008

The Government Just Allows You to Keep Some Things

Justin Katz

How quickly we could slide into tyranny! All it takes is a perceived need to reveal that human beings are very comfortable asserting government ownership and leveraging its power:

What if Congress suddenly awoke from its spineless ho-hum existence and passed a law that stated that heretofore every American's body would become the property of the federal government immediately upon death. And that all such bodies would be subject to inspection and all suitable organs harvested before the bodies would be returned to the families for burial.

Immediately all waiting lists for organ transplants would become a thing of the past and many new life-saving transplants would be developed. Gone would be a family's long agony as they awaited the availability of a vital organ to preserve the life of a loved one. Gone would be the risk of accepting a borderline organ in fear that a healthy one might not arrive in time. And gone would be the reluctance of doctors to accept older patients into a transplant program, preferring instead to selectively award rare organs to younger people with longer life expectancies.

Of course, the author, George Champagne of Greenville, isn't thinking just transplants. He also lauds the potential for "countless new medical procedures." I imagine sympathizers would also find advantageous the opportunity to inspect every American corpse after death for other reasons.

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The worst part of this is, if the policy described in the link ever did become law, it wouldn't be long before you would have CBPP-types asserting that the government NOT claiming your body when you were alive represented "lost revenue" requiring offset through raised taxes or some other form of government taking!

Posted by: Andrew at October 13, 2008 9:02 AM

Not to mention a significant incentive to sharply ration health care during everyone's fourth quarter.

More parts, less of a drain on health care resources and a rental fee paid to government for use of your own body while you're still alive. Say, this could be a big win all around ...

Posted by: Monique at October 13, 2008 11:14 PM
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