U.K. to Begin Harvesting Organs from Dead Patients Without Consent!*

by David Gutierrez

(NaturalNews) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced his
support for the harvesting of organs from dead patients without prior
consent, and said that he hopes for such a policy change to take place
within the year.

"A system of this kind seems to have the potential to close the aching
gap between the potential benefits of transplant surgery in the United
Kingdom and the limits imposed by our current system of consent," Brown
wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.

With a waiting list for organs 8,000 patients long, and 1,000 people
dying each year due to organ unavailability, the U.K. has announced
plans to overhaul its organ donation system. As part of this new effort,
doctors and nurses will be pressured to identify more organ donors ahead
of time and to alert organ donation coordinators as patients approach
death. The government seeks to appoint a doctor in each hospital as a
donation "champion," to be paired with a lay person who can do outreach
on the topic.

The government admits that a conflict of interest might occur when
doctors are encouraged to view still-living patients as potential organ
sources.

Even with these planned measures, the government says that donations
might still be insufficient. For this reason, Brown and others are
calling for the presumption of consent unless patients have formerly
opted out or their family members explicitly deny permission.

Advocates point to the discrepancy between the rate at which people in
Britain endorse organ donation - 90 percent - and the 60 percent of
families that give permission upon a relative's death. Among many ethnic
minorities, the donation figure is as low as 25 percent.

Patients groups blasted the proposal, saying it infringes on patients'
rights over their own bodies.

"They call it presumed consent, but it is no consent at all," said Joyce
Robin of Patient Concern. "They are relying on inertia and ignorance to
get the results that they want."

Robin said the government has not made enough efforts to increase
voluntary donation to justify to such extreme measures.