In the United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown has gone on record as supporting hospitals to take organs for transplant without the patient’s prior consent.

Only about 24% of the UK population has opted in to the program to donate their organs after death. So, Brown backs moving to a system of "presumed consent" whereby a dead person's organs would automatically be available for transplant unless individuals had opted out of the national register or family members objected.

Are you kidding me?!?
While they’re at it, they may as well set it up so that everyone’s life support is pulled after 24 hours, unless you opt out, and ask for 48!

Opting out generally applies to something that is an annoyance to us and we want to get rid of. We opt “out” of receiving emails from companies whose products we buy. We opt “out” of receiving phone calls from telemarketers. We don’t opt out of organ donation, we opt in.

To take a decision that is as personal and private as choosing organ donation and minimizing it to the point of saying the government has a right to your dead body is just plain wrong. This is the current set up in Spain, although they claim that they ask for prior permission before taking any organs; however, they can legally take your organs without any prior permission from you or your family members. I remember a story, years ago from Spain, when a little boy died in a car accident while on vacation from the U.S. with his family. His organs were taken without the families consent. The family was devastated when they learned what had happened.

Thank goodness we live in a country where (with a few exceptions) we can decide what happens to us when we are alive… and dead.