Sunday, April 22, 2007

Post mortem scandals

I am supposed to react with shocked horror to the idea that organs or tissues may have, for research purposes, sometimes been removed from dead bodies without the relatives (or indeed the corpses) permission

I am also supposed to understand why, in some cases, such parts have been retrieved from the laboratory & given a 'decent burial'

Why then would it be thought peculiar of me to ask that significant parts of my body, which were surgically removed over 20 years ago, be reunited & disposed of together with the rest of me when I die?

Does anyone want to join with me in a campaign to fight for my human right to decide whether the NHS should callously have decided to chuck my bits into the incinerator or pickled them in glass jars to be gawped at by generations of medical students?