Modern Body Snatchers

While I don't think we really own our bodies (they're a gift from God, though I do wish my gift had been a bit more svelte), this story (also here) about organ donation shows how we are coming to view the human body in a profoundly post-Christian way:

Britain is going to introduce a sobering bill in April that will finesse the issue of ownership of a newly deceased corpse. According to The Times, doctors are to be given the right to keep organs artificially alive after death without getting consent from the next of kin. This involves cooling and preserving fluids being pumped into the corpse. These preserve the organs for up to four hours, while surgeons seek consent from -- read 'put pressure on' -- the newly bereaved in the holy name of transplants. In this instance, they are hoping to clear a backlist of more than 5,000 people on the kidney transplant list -- assuming that they can wear down most of the grieving families within the four-hour time limit.

Thus one more light goes out. The ancient universal respect for the dead and horror at desecration of the corpse gets one more accretion of hardening calcium over ancient tenderness and respect in the service of official "need". Your body belongs not to your family, but the state, and we are en route to nationalization of the recently deceased....

Medical science is able to keep people with critical illnesses alive for ever-longer interim pre-transplant periods. So the need for organs has reached the stage where ghoulish measures, such as the one proposed in Britain, are being tiptoed in. How much favor they will find with the public isn't known, but the sanctity previously accorded the dead is being eroded by a powerful and aggressive transplant lobby.