Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
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Vote the opposite of the norm.
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1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
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4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
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5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
6. Defend your opinion
This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
Problem is, lots of them just get given to cops to play with.
If i knew it was gonna get cut up to train new surgeons or study how i died or figure out how i didn't so many times, I'd be on board.
But there's no way yo be sure it won't be a chew toy for cops. So I'll be cremated.
This opinion is unpopular because science doesn't need that many bodies and organ shortages are already solved by opt-out systems, so it's just being a tyrant for no gain over far simpler solutions.
No one person can make that determination or all of us. Also, have you looked into what actually happens when a body gets donated. Here is John Oliver's investigation:
I want my remains spread around Disney World. Also I do not wish to be cremated.
Probably an unpopular reply, but I already have enough fear of organ harvesting. I don't need the government to one day decide that there are too many people on waiting lists so they're just gonna pull feeding tubes or some other drastic dystopian level shit they're probably really thinking about. Maybe kill off a few minorities or poor people or the handicapped while we're already ignoring body autonomy and basic human rights?
If they're gonna go that far, do you really think your consent matters at all?
It's the only thing that matters.
No, but I'm still not going to consent. When governments step out of bounds sometimes people give them consequences. Sometimes.
No-one's gonna want my organs by the time I'm done with them. I'm not too keen on them myself at this point.
Some doctors and scientists are really fucked up and value their experiements over human life. If bodies become a resource they can claim, some patients may not get the care they deserve because the body would be valuable to their studies and experiments.
There is also concerns for the organ market.
Culturally, humans have long standing and many unique traditions for caring for their dead. Someone and their remaining family should not be denied their funeral rights because science wants their body.
A better option would be increasing the amount of awareness for these programs so that people willing to donate their body or organs are informed of their existence and goals and can choose to donate.
This is a proper unpopular opinion because, as someone who received an organ transplant from a deceased donor, I disagree with it.
I am a huge advocate for organ donation for obvious reasons but I don't think it should come at the cost of bodily autonomy.
If my body is valuable my family should get paid for it. The healthcare industry certainly is when they use the organs.
Probably why there's such a push for people to become donors. Don't consider the needs of the sick, but of the shareholders.
Yeah. I'd happily give it for free if the whole system was structured that way but if there's profit being made from me I want my family to get a cut.
Tell them to have a yard sale when you go. Cut out the middle man and make a few bucks on some home-grown organ meats.
I disagree.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodybrokers-industry/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1800998/
the list is endless. humans are shit, even after you're dead.
I'll take my cremation and fuck humanity of any further support.
Here in the UK all everyone is automatically on the donation list, you have to opt out, not opt in like a lot of countries.
having an opt-out policy instead if an opt-in policy would allow those that care enough to opt out, but allow science and organ donation to become the cultural norm.
if you opt out, you are no longer eligible to receive organs if you need them
i disagree here. someone caring enough to opt out shouldnt be considered a detriment to the program - i dont think a punishment here is suitable; after all, in my country (usa) we want people to have different viewpoints from our own (as much as the current racist president would probably despise that phrase, it is still a strong sentiment among the people).
having body/organ donations as a normal part of society would make a plethora of organs and bodies available - having a couple fewer bodies shouldnt be reprimanded.
This doesnt clear the anti discrimination bare minimum standard for a rule given its okay if a religion says no donation and people apply that to themselves the same way it's okay if a person says that for themselves.
There was a scandal in the US where bodies being donated to ‘science’ were used for munitions testing by the us military. So the “who receives said body” is very important.
"Put 'em in the movies!" - Bill Hicks
Technically speaking, those bodies were used for science. Just they were used for military science, not health sciences.
Yeah but there you're talking about the US where no one gives a fuck about anything but money.
I fully agree that after tmdeath all bodies should be used automatically for either organ donation or science. I'm dead already, let my (un)timely demise be the reason why someone else can be helped
Their point is you cannot just use a blanket term such as "for science" and expect everyone else to know what is and isn't considered appropriate. As they said, those bodies were still used "for science"... military science and weapons testing. It is still technically "for science".
The discussion shouldn't be on what we personally find appropriate, instead we must first determine who has authority over the cadaver. It is no longer a person with autonomy, just a bag of flesh and bone, an inanimate object. Who owns it? The next of kin? The state? Some other third entity?
Once this question is answered, it will be up to them what ultimately happens to the cadaver.
Fair enough
My point was more about that if my body gets used for science in say, Canada or Europe, i can probably rest easily (pun intended) knowing that my remains will be treated with respect.
In the USA its a damn near guarantee that someone will use my body in a YouTube video to score a few cheap points
I was more going off about how in the US way too many people respect nothing, not even the dead, and that everything has been cheapened
No, it wouldn't be. There are strict limitations on the sale and use of cadavers. They can only be sold for the purpose of education or research. You'll never find a dead body being used for a YouTube video, at least not "legally". Don't be hyperbolic. Besides, if you know how bodies are used for science, even medical science, it is far from what most would call "respectful". You either are sent to a school so that students can get their hands all up in your guts for anatomical familiarization through dissection or to practice medical procedures on then summarily discarded (usually cremated and sent back to the family once its usefulness has run its course), dismembered to have its parts and organs sold individually to different research sites for the purpose of testing pharmaceuticals or be purposely infected with diseases to observe their effects on tissue then also summarily discarded as bio-waste, or used for forensic science as your corpse is allowed to rot in the sun for observation on a body farm.
You know how medical science tests the effects of smoking on the lungs? Other than simply looking at the lungs of those who smoked in life, they take healthy lungs and hook them up to a pump to force it to "smoke" and then observe how it affected the tissue.
Anyways, back to the overall point...
The term "respect" is highly arbitrary. People in the US respect a lot of things, just not the same things that you respect, nor will they respect them in the same manner if you do share a mutual respect of something. Is that problematic? It entirely depends on the specific subject matter and those involved. The topic of "what is respectful" is a lot more nuanced and intersectional to why certain things have been glorified or deemed worth respecting while others have been disregarded in certain cultures and regions. Even then, it always comes down to each individual and their personal interpretation of reasoning. Thus, again, making blanket, simplistic statements is naive and not useful for discussion.
This is why I focused my point on ownership instead of subjective aspects. The only person whose input on "respectful use" that ultimately matters is the person who has ownership over the object being used, which in this case is a cadaver.
Personally, I don't understand the notion of "respect the dead"; we're dead, our consent and opinion don't really matter anymore past the point of death. I especially don't understand it in regards to handling of cadavers; they are simply inanimate objects that need to be disposed of, as they will rot and be vectors for diseases if left unattended, nothing more. If people can find uses for them, all the better.
It's worth giving this paper from 2021 a read. The basic conclusion is that shifting away from an opt-in organ donation system does not increase the number of actual organs available, because the number of people willing to donate organs is not the (only) bottleneck in obtaining usable organs.
Soon that will change since we're starting to genetically modify pigs to grow human organs.
Do they even need the pigs anymore? Last I heard they could grow them with stem cells, a scaffolding and a nutrient bath.
No, I'm pretty that we're not quite that far. So far, they can grow like a chicken nugget size chunk of muscle. But I would not be surprised to see it in my lifetime.
All bodies should be automatically given to science and organ donation upon death.
Let me get that right. What you're proposing is that every human is a burlap $ack full of $$$ if not ruined by cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, or cancer from micro plastics is to be given away for free with zero compensation to the grieving family and all $xx,xxx to $xxx,xxx profits for said sold organ going to some executive?
¡Fuuuuuuuuck that shit!
¿You think this kid's knee or kidney is gonna pay for someone not in this blood line's Ferrari?
¡You're out of your god damn mind!
My next of kin get market value of that organ or my shit gets burnt to ash and pressed into vinyl records so I can continue going to raves even after I am dead.
Agreed. But also, cemeteries and casket burials should be banned. Complete waste of space and land. Cremate or better yet, let the animals and bugs eat my dead meat.
Why is cremation so damn expensive, though?
Because its the last chance to make a profit on a person.
I live in Flanders, Belgium and we have an opt-out system of sorts. Everyone is a donor, unless official objections were made. That sounds great, but doctors need to ascertain if there are no objections, even informal ones.
So it kind of boils down to doctors still having to ask your next of kin. But - according to data from UZ Leuven, one of our biggest hospitals - asking ‘are there any objections to the normal course of events’ works better than ‘do you wish to donate you loved ones organs’. Especially during a time of grief. It says Belgium has about 30 donors per million, whereas Germany and The Netherlands have about 15. (Data from 2024)
Because of this system you can still also officially state that your organs are to be donated if possible. And apparently you can do so from the age of 12 onwards. If you do so, no questions are asked and no one is able to object.
Tl;dr In Belgium we have an opt-out system, but it’s not bulletproof. And it doesn’t result in an enormous amount of donations. There are still waiting lists, though there are more donations than in some of our neighbouring countries. Reality is messy!
Why don't they require people to go to a government building and sign paperwork to get off then get it added to your state ID that can be scanned at death to tell if you're an opt out