Forced organ donations for drunk drivers

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2007-09-17 06:50pm

A while back I read a collection of short stories, I think they were by Robert Silverberg but I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, one of the stories involved a mandatory organ draft for citizens once they hit 18. Basically, the geezers in power decided that they wanted to live forever and have a guaranteed source of organs for when their hearts, livers, kidneys, and so forth crapped out, and so all the young people without money & power became walking organ banks. If some geezer needs a new heart, then they go through the list of compatible donors and draw one at random, and the unfortunate young sucker gets his ticker pulled out. Obviously, he doesn't live.

I kinda put that away for a while until I read the Fred Durst thread in N&P, which reminded me of my hatred for drunk & asshole drivers. And so I thought, we have a serious shortage of organs, blood, and many other things, so what if we turned every idiot who gets a DUI into a mandatory organ donor, and then used the random draw system from the story above to match them up with people who need organs?

For a first offence, assuming he doesn't kill or injure anyone, he becomes a blood & bone marrow donor, a 2nd DUI and he can donate one of his kidneys. After that, or if he injures or kills someone, we can start taking organs that'll leave him dead, like say, his heart & lungs.

Thoughts? Could a system like this be morally justified?

Paradox244 · Post by **Paradox244** » 2007-09-17 06:56pm

I really don't think it could. It's just... no. It would amount to a death sentance for three DUI's. That can't be right. If they killed someone, I really don't know. But I don't think the concept could work.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-09-17 07:36pm

Intrinsic ethical issues aside, any plausible implementation would be far too easy to abuse.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-09-17 08:11pm

aerius wrote:
Thoughts? Could a system like this be morally justified?

Don't drunk drivers, especially repeat ones, typically have too many health problems with their organs to make them viable donors?

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-09-17 08:26pm

General Zod wrote:
aerius wrote:
Thoughts? Could a system like this be morally justified?
Don't drunk drivers, especially repeat ones, typically have too many health problems with their organs to make them viable donors?

Probably not. There are plenty of occasional drinking idiots who get into their car drunk.

PREDATOR490 · Post by **PREDATOR490** » 2007-09-17 08:35pm

This kind of concept reminds me of the series Lexx. They had criminals who got carved up for organs and someone who was late for his post ended up losing a limb, kidney and testical...

Dont see this as being justifiable at all really and its got horrible implications for expansion to the point Lexx had.

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba · Post by **Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba** » 2007-09-17 08:37pm

Carving people up in retribution for their sins? Wasn't this part of that whole 'eye for an eye' Hammurabi shit we dispensed with centuries ago?

Post by **Beowulf** » 2007-09-17 10:05pm

Having mandated the death sentence for drunk driving, why not murder? And then why not manslaughter. And then assault. Then speeding. Anyone else ever read Niven?

Junghalli · Post by **Junghalli** » 2007-09-17 10:09pm

If we'd impliment something like that I'd be in favor of simply making organ harvesting standard procedure in executions of criminals. You're going to kill them anyway, why not save a few lives in the bargain? Of course, I can see how such a system might lend itself to abuse, since it creates an incentive for the legal system to give out as many death sentences as possible.

Honestly, what I'd really like to do is make organ harvesting a standard procedure in disposing of corpses, which you have to actively take steps to opt out of if you don't want it done to you when you die. Or, failing that, give a tax cut for organ donors.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-09-17 10:09pm

It seems like there is plenty of room to make penalties for drunk driving much stiffer before instituting a LEXX-style forced organ donation program.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2007-09-17 10:38pm

Beowulf wrote:Having mandated the death sentence for drunk driving, why not murder? And then why not manslaughter. And then assault. Then speeding. Anyone else ever read Niven?

Quoted for truth. When the average citizen has a self-serving impetus in favor of the death penalty, they will love it entirely too much.

Napoleon the Clown · Post by **Napoleon the Clown** » 2007-09-18 04:12am

Why that's a fine idea. There's no potential for abuse and it'd do so much to help fix our need for organs. And it'd be ethically acceptable to everyone too! And hell, I want some drunk fuck's liver to replace my own. The idea of someone being essentially tortured sounds astoundingly good to me. That fucker deserves to have very horrible consequences for his actions, regardless of the fact that alcohol impairs judgment and is probably why he drove when he shouldn't have in the first place!

Yeah, that was sarcasm...

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2007-09-18 06:28am

Sentencing drunk drivers to mandatory blood donation isn't a bad idea, though. It's akin to having people do public work as restitution for their crime.

Let's have drunk drivers - especially young drunk drivers - give blood mandatorily. I'd also love for them to do public work in the ER ward, but I don't think we could actually find anything for them to do there.

It hurts nobody, helps accident victims and maybe (however small the chance may be) helps them realize much of an asshole they were for drunk driving.

Organ extraction for a repeat offender is excessive, though. There's little difference between that and just shooting them by the side of the road when caught.

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2007-09-18 06:56am

aerius wrote:Thoughts? Could a system like this be morally justified?

Sure, if you live in a typical dark and smoggy future dystopia.

And what are you going to tell the patients? "Congratulations! We killed a guy and stole his organs so that you can live. But don't worry, he was a bad guy." I think that will just work wonders for the brutalising effect...

kinnison · Post by **kinnison** » 2007-09-18 06:24pm

PeZook wrote:Sentencing drunk drivers to mandatory blood donation isn't a bad idea, though. It's akin to having people do public work as restitution for their crime.

Let's have drunk drivers - especially young drunk drivers - give blood mandatorily. I'd also love for them to do public work in the ER ward, but I don't think we could actually find anything for them to do there.

It hurts nobody, helps accident victims and maybe (however small the chance may be) helps them realize much of an asshole they were for drunk driving.

Organ extraction for a repeat offender is excessive, though. There's little difference between that and just shooting them by the side of the road when caught.

Hmmm... mandatory blood donation for drunk drivers. Interesting idea. A few problems though - there are significant numbers of people who can't afford to give blood for medical reasons, or their blood is unsafe and hence unacceptable for some reason. What then?

By the way, I am one of the latter. The UK blood donation service has recently decided that anyone who has received blood - ever - is not acceptable as a donor, because blood products are often pooled from many donors and the risk of transmission of disease (AIDS, BSE, hepatitis being examples) is too high. So although I would like to do my bit and have asked, I can't. <shrug> I suspect that my organs would be unusable for the same reason; however, I have no particular desire for my family to find out.

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