One of Britain’s leading bioethicists has endorsed compulsory deceased organ donation. Writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics, John Harris, of the University of Manchester, and Antonia Cronin, of Kings College London, argue that today’s organ shortage is so severe that it trumps autonomy over the posthumous use of one’s body.

It is absurd, they say, for the wishes of dead people to restrict the use of potentially life-saving organs. “When I am dead I have lost the capacity that it is the point of autonomy and the law to protect. I am no longer able to think critically about preferences, desires or wishes. I am no longer able to make choices.”

Nor is it appropriate for relatives to act as proxy for a deceased person’s wishes. Religious and conscience objections should be also ignored: “It is difficult to see how a democratic society faced with a public health and public safety catastrophe which is costing that society thousands of lives would not be justified in limiting both the right to privacy and family life and the right to conscience and religion.”

Harris and Cronin believe, in fact, that there is a moral imperative to adopt a policy of organ conscription if an organizational shake-up fails to solve the organ shortage crisis. “If we allow personal preference to take priority over the life-saving potential of organ transplants, we must take

collective responsibility for the lives that will, as an inevitable consequence, needlessly be lost.” ~ Journal of Medical Ethics, October