Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!cbosgd!ucbvax!UOFT01.BITNET!ASPDMM
From: ASPDMM@UOFT01.BITNET
Newsgroups: mod.legal
Subject: BITNET mail follows
Message-ID: <8609291503.aa23973@SEM.BRL.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 29-Sep-86 14:46:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: SEM.8609291503.aa23973
Posted: Mon Sep 29 14:46:00 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Sep-86 14:54:11 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 25
Approved: info-law@brl.arpa


Dear Colleagues,

   I know this  is not the type of topic  we usually discuss
on this network,  but I had to get this out.   I read a case
in  Trusts as  Estates  that  dealt with  Anatomical  Gifts.
After the  case the editors pointed  out that we  would have
far  more donated  organs if  we  placed the  burden on  the
person "not interested  in saving life" and  not vice versa.
In other  words,  they  proposed,  I kid  you not,   that we
operate  on  the  presumption (rebuttable,   I  hope)   that
EVERYONE wanted  to donate unless  they took  an affirmative
action to indicate  to the contrary.   They  also added that
this is routine in some parts of Europe.

   The bottom  line was  that you would  be assumed  to have
donative intent, and that if you failed to object, you would
be eviscerated at death.  Now I know that some circumstances
mandate autopsies, but this is another thing entirely.   The
editors were gracious enough to  include an editorial of the
opposing  view pointing  out  that  this was  only  slightly
removed from mandatory cannibalism,  to which I reply - very
slightly.

Dave Massey