We do not need our bodies once we leave this world regardless of what you think happens after we die. We should be focused on curing diseases and extending the life of living humans. Science would go so far if we used human bodies after death instead of requiring people to give consent to something they don’t need.
I disagree.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodybrokers-industry/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1800998/
the list is endless. humans are shit, even after you’re dead.
I’ll take my cremation and fuck humanity of any further support.
In fairness, pretty much any subject will have some negatives that could be pointed to and touted as an excuse for not doing something.
If there’s even a 1% chance of your body being properly useful to science in some way, and therefore humanity at large, it’s worth the odds.
Though I’d bet good money that the amount of mutilation and whatnot isn’t particularly common for science bound bodies. Much easier to steal some organs from the morgue bodies marked for non collection.
The morgue bodies may not have as high quality of organs or may not match genetically. If a billionaire puts a bounty on a liver that fits them genetically and has barely been abused, someone is going to be looking to cash in.
I wish I could live in that timeline where all morgue attendants got a page when the world’s 1% needs a good looking kidney hahaha.
If there’s even a 1% chance of your body being properly useful to science in some way, and therefore humanity at large, it’s worth the odds.
my body, my choice. if body donation was mandatory I’d self-immolate so there’s nothing left after.
I don’t know why body autonomy is such a hard concept to grasp for people. literally the only thing you can “own” is yourself. this ownership doesn’t end after death, you just can’t make decisions known after your death. this is why it’s always been taboo to perform anything but last rites to the dead.
just to note, I’m not religious at all. I believe that after death you cease to exist. that said, the image of my body being slaughtered like a pig for some corporate gains makes me sick and honestly might turn me into an extremist faction and compel me to take action against corporate interests.
I was only meaning that 1% chance bit in reference to someone that had chosen to donate their body to science.
I am for opt out instead of opt in, but making it mandatory would be a step too far. At the same time I find the two opinions of ‘my body my choice’ and ‘after death you cease to exist’ to be a bit counter posed.
I would instead suggest what already occurs in today’s reality: write your wishes down, and hope your wishes are followed by your descendants, or your family, or your executor, or your attorney.
Unfortunately for anyone’s wishes, that’s all they are - wishes. Unless one go to rather significant lengths to erect checks and balances to the following of your desires, whichever individual remains after our demise can simply do away with whatever they please and have an auction to the rich for extra parts while taking sponsorships from big oil.
Forgive this awful joke, I wrote it and can't bring myself to erase it.
Even setting yourself ablaze would leave some ashes for big tobacco to purchase the rights for and derive a new Flamin’ Hot Cheeto cigarette designed specifically for the female low income high school student market to help stave off those pregnancy cravings and keep that rockin’ bod.
Agreed. But also, cemeteries and casket burials should be banned. Complete waste of space and land. Cremate or better yet, let the animals and bugs eat my dead meat.
Why is cremation so damn expensive, though?
Because its the last chance to make a profit on a person.
If my body is valuable my family should get paid for it. The healthcare industry certainly is when they use the organs.
Probably why there’s such a push for people to become donors. Don’t consider the needs of the sick, but of the shareholders.
Yeah. I’d happily give it for free if the whole system was structured that way but if there’s profit being made from me I want my family to get a cut.
Tell them to have a yard sale when you go. Cut out the middle man and make a few bucks on some home-grown organ meats.
Here in the UK all everyone is automatically on the donation list, you have to opt out, not opt in like a lot of countries.
Some doctors and scientists are really fucked up and value their experiements over human life. If bodies become a resource they can claim, some patients may not get the care they deserve because the body would be valuable to their studies and experiments.
There is also concerns for the organ market.
Culturally, humans have long standing and many unique traditions for caring for their dead. Someone and their remaining family should not be denied their funeral rights because science wants their body.
A better option would be increasing the amount of awareness for these programs so that people willing to donate their body or organs are informed of their existence and goals and can choose to donate.
There was a scandal in the US where bodies being donated to ‘science’ were used for munitions testing by the us military. So the “who receives said body” is very important.
Yeah but there you’re talking about the US where no one gives a fuck about anything but money.
I fully agree that after tmdeath all bodies should be used automatically for either organ donation or science. I’m dead already, let my (un)timely demise be the reason why someone else can be helped
Their point is you cannot just use a blanket term such as “for science” and expect everyone else to know what is and isn’t considered appropriate. As they said, those bodies were still used “for science”… military science and weapons testing. It is still technically “for science”.
The discussion shouldn’t be on what we personally find appropriate, instead we must first determine who has authority over the cadaver. It is no longer a person with autonomy, just a bag of flesh and bone, an inanimate object. Who owns it? The next of kin? The state? Some other third entity?
Once this question is answered, it will be up to them what ultimately happens to the cadaver.
Fair enough
My point was more about that if my body gets used for science in say, Canada or Europe, i can probably rest easily (pun intended) knowing that my remains will be treated with respect.
In the USA its a damn near guarantee that someone will use my body in a YouTube video to score a few cheap points
I was more going off about how in the US way too many people respect nothing, not even the dead, and that everything has been cheapened
No, it wouldn’t be. There are strict limitations on the sale and use of cadavers. They can only be sold for the purpose of education or research. You’ll never find a dead body being used for a YouTube video, at least not “legally”. Don’t be hyperbolic. Besides, if you know how bodies are used for science, even medical science, it is far from what most would call “respectful”. You either are sent to a school so that students can get their hands all up in your guts for anatomical familiarization through dissection or to practice medical procedures on then summarily discarded (usually cremated and sent back to the family once its usefulness has run its course), dismembered to have its parts and organs sold individually to different research sites for the purpose of testing pharmaceuticals or be purposely infected with diseases to observe their effects on tissue then also summarily discarded as bio-waste, or used for forensic science as your corpse is allowed to rot in the sun for observation on a body farm.
You know how medical science tests the effects of smoking on the lungs? Other than simply looking at the lungs of those who smoked in life, they take healthy lungs and hook them up to a pump to force it to “smoke” and then observe how it affected the tissue.
Anyways, back to the overall point…
The term “respect” is highly arbitrary. People in the US respect a lot of things, just not the same things that you respect, nor will they respect them in the same manner if you do share a mutual respect of something. Is that problematic? It entirely depends on the specific subject matter and those involved. The topic of “what is respectful” is a lot more nuanced and intersectional to why certain things have been glorified or deemed worth respecting while others have been disregarded in certain cultures and regions. Even then, it always comes down to each individual and their personal interpretation of reasoning. Thus, again, making blanket, simplistic statements is naive and not useful for discussion.
This is why I focused my point on ownership instead of subjective aspects. The only person whose input on “respectful use” that ultimately matters is the person who has ownership over the object being used, which in this case is a cadaver.
Personally, I don’t understand the notion of “respect the dead”; we’re dead, our consent and opinion don’t really matter anymore past the point of death. I especially don’t understand it in regards to handling of cadavers; they are simply inanimate objects that need to be disposed of, as they will rot and be vectors for diseases if left unattended, nothing more. If people can find uses for them, all the better.
Technically speaking, those bodies were used for science. Just they were used for military science, not health sciences.
“Put 'em in the movies!” - Bill Hicks
He was talking about terminal and hospice patients. People who were still alive
“Holy shit, Jackie Chan kicked grammas head off”
It’s worth giving this paper from 2021 a read. The basic conclusion is that shifting away from an opt-in organ donation system does not increase the number of actual organs available, because the number of people willing to donate organs is not the (only) bottleneck in obtaining usable organs.
Soon that will change since we’re starting to genetically modify pigs to grow human organs.
Do they even need the pigs anymore? Last I heard they could grow them with stem cells, a scaffolding and a nutrient bath.
No, I’m pretty that we’re not quite that far. So far, they can grow like a chicken nugget size chunk of muscle. But I would not be surprised to see it in my lifetime.
Took me a sec but I was able to dig up the video on it.
It’s far cheaper and easier to grow a pig. There was, very recently, a breakthrough on genetically modifying a pig for a particular organ recipient? Anyone know what I’m talking about?
Giving pigs scaffolding and baths‽ Those swine!
Correct
everyone should be a donor by default,
if you opt out, you are also barred from getting organs if you need them. seems fair.
Nah. There’s too many pieces of shit out there that don’t deserve my organs. I revoked my donor status after Trump won in my state.
This is a proper unpopular opinion because, as someone who received an organ transplant from a deceased donor, I disagree with it.
I am a huge advocate for organ donation for obvious reasons but I don’t think it should come at the cost of bodily autonomy.
Well it’s not exactly autonomy if you’re dead. It’s not you anymore, or even your body, it’s just an empty body. And it’s not like you can use it. In my mind it’s equivalent to “Nobody gets my car when I die. I want it to be buried”
Bodily autonomy is the concept that individuals have the right to make their own decisions about their bodies and reproductive health, without coercion or external interference. This includes the freedom to choose whether to have an abortion, use contraception, or consent to medical procedures. It is considered a fundamental human right and is closely linked to other rights like privacy, equality, and bodily integrity.
You make the decision when you’re still alive.
having an opt-out policy instead if an opt-in policy would allow those that care enough to opt out, but allow science and organ donation to become the cultural norm.
if you opt out, you are no longer eligible to receive organs if you need them
i disagree here. someone caring enough to opt out shouldnt be considered a detriment to the program - i dont think a punishment here is suitable; after all, in my country (usa) we want people to have different viewpoints from our own (as much as the current racist president would probably despise that phrase, it is still a strong sentiment among the people).
having body/organ donations as a normal part of society would make a plethora of organs and bodies available - having a couple fewer bodies shouldnt be reprimanded.
This doesnt clear the anti discrimination bare minimum standard for a rule given its okay if a religion says no donation and people apply that to themselves the same way it’s okay if a person says that for themselves.
a religioun says no pork, is subsidising food (which includes pork) racist?
Pretty certain that’s not true in the US. Where are you?
sorry, I was saying that it should be like that, not that it is
sorry, I was saying that it should be like that, not that it is
This opinion is unpopular because science doesn’t need that many bodies and organ shortages are already solved by opt-out systems, so it’s just being a tyrant for no gain over far simpler solutions.
Organ shortages are definitely not covered by opt in.
Opt out also doesn’t mean that scientist have to use all the bodies.
It’s never been a problem to have too many bodies. It’s a lot easier to turn away some when they’re not needed than it is to find one when needed.
Great post! Definitely unpopular on every level, and with a solid explanation of your reasoning.
I don’t agree, not in the way it’s presented, but it’s still an awesome post.
The reason I don’t agree is that it isn’t practical. Well, not in the way it would need to be to make it useful.
See, it’s not enough that a person be a donor for their organs to be useful. They have to die in the right place, at the right time, and in a way that doesn’t otherwise prevent viability. The difficulties of matching a donor to a living recipient isn’t really limited by people checking the box to be a donor. Not opting in just pushes the decision off to the next of kin. Making it opt out isn’t going to solve the limitations, so there’s no need to deal with all the legal rigamarole to get a system for opt-out in place, much less mandatory.
As far as donating to science goes, the limitation is less about donors again. It’s proximity vs usefulness vs cost. You’d first have to overcome the social factor where the kin of the dead have a valid claim to determine disposition of remains, which is a huge barrier when trying to enact it.
But they you still run into being able to get a body to a “science” in a reasonable timeframe. Which isn’t always possible. If I die right now, the chances of me getting to a program that can prepare my body for much of anything before decomposition would set in is low. Not impossible, just difficult because even that teaching hospital in the next county doesn’t use cadavers for education, or experimentation.
I’m too far away from any of the “body farms” for use in that field of research. Even if decomposition wasn’t a factor, anthropology and osteology programs don’t really need more bones. So, if I specifically wanted my remains to go to something like that, I’d have to pay for it. Which is no longer donation in my mind, it’s just an unusual funeral. When my bones got to whatever university was willing to store them, they’ll sit in a box in a room and never do anything useful.
There would need to be something unusual about my remains for them to be useful in education at this point.
Medical research doesn’t need dead bodies often.
So what science is it going to?
The answer is none because the number of people voluntarily donating is already meeting demand for research.
But, hey, maybe it would be worth setting up a cadaver transportation and storage system anyway. Maybe future research would need them. But, it would need to be set up. Preservation has to be done locally, so tack it onto existing medical examiner’s offices. They apply whatever method is determined to be best to the bodies. Then they ship them to some kind of centralized storage. We can build those over existing cemeteries, so it’ll be decades before we run out of land to build them on.
Once there, staff would maintain the remains. Most likely frozen, since chemical preservation causes other hassles. So you’d have freezer cemeteries that can build upwards instead of outwards, which is definitely a good thing.
Then, they can stay there until someone needs a dead body, but doesn’t need it freshly dead. Even has the side benefit of still allowed kin to visit!
But, still, dead bodies aren’t very useful for “science”. Great for training new doctors though. So we’d always have enough on standby for that.
Yes, but that may lead to an increase in murders of young people with organs of the needed characteristics.
Except that in most of the world its opt out yet there isn’t a rise in that. There is zero chance of people killing someone when they need their organ
in most of the world its opt out
Is it? You should bring a proof, because this claim is highly dubious.
The cited article shows that there is no difference in the death rate of donors between opt-in an opt-out countries.
But it does not support the claim that most countries are opt-out. They only look at OECD countries, where opt-in is in the majority (18 opt-in vs 17 opt-out).
Hm. Interesting, actually. Thanks for the info. It is quite unexpected data for me.
Table with countries:
https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-014-0131-4/tables/1
You can’t just pick someone off the street and hope their organ works.
Organized crime in Latin America said hold my beer, fam.
given there are many countries with opt out policies, and your idiotic case has never happened, I will assume it’s a non issue.
They always have the worst takes on things
They’re either a fool or a troll
that’s a wee bit of an absolute statement, did you go thru my comment history?
you should chill.
I’d say you sound like you have a stick up your ass, but based on your username, that’s intentional
Not you,
Lembot is the idiot
I agree with your comment
I definitely reached the view that I would donate my own body after reading Stiff, by Mary Roach many years ago. The funeral industry is nuts.
That said, it’s offputting to make it compulsory. There should be a focus on awareness.
Long before I met her, my wife worked in mortuary sciences. I often forget that, though, because she got into different fields and I’ve never encountered her in her original environment.
Still, every once in a while she’ll come out with something like “so once I was working on this dead guy” and, well, let’s just say all the attention in the room will suddenly be centered on her.
All bodies should be automatically given to science and organ donation upon death.
Let me get that right. What you’re proposing is that every human is a burlap $ack full of $$$ if not ruined by cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, or cancer from micro plastics is to be given away for free with zero compensation to the grieving family and all $xx,xxx to $xxx,xxx profits for said sold organ going to some executive?
¡Fuuuuuuuuck that shit!
¿You think this kid’s knee or kidney is gonna pay for someone not in this blood line’s Ferrari?
¡You’re out of your god damn mind!
My next of kin get market value of that organ or my shit gets burnt to ash and pressed into vinyl records so I can continue going to raves even after I am dead.
Capitalism at its finest my friends.
More like cocaine at it’s finest
