Wednesday 3 July 2013

Have a heart!

Victor Frankenstein would be cock-a-hoop. No longer would he have to rely on the hand-me-down trophies of ghouls picking over newly-filled graves, he could simply nip into Cardiff and pick up spare parts from the morgue. As the presumed consent to automatically  harvest reusable organs unless a deliberate opt-out has been registered takes effect, the Welsh Organ Swap Shop could become thriving new sector of the economy. Soon, would-be Frankensteins might be able to pick up pre-enjoyed organs at any car boot sale.

Of course, such casual spare-part surgery has been going on for years. For instance Donatella Versace and Micky Rourke clearly share the same face – you never see them together, do you? Without the use of Ed Miliband’s features, Aardman Animations may never have been able to bring Gromit to life and as Ann Widdecombe observed, there was always a touch of the night about Michael Howard.

Naturally there is plenty of objection to the Welsh Assembly’s decision, but it makes complete sense. A donor card may not be found on a body, a person’s family may not know their wishes and a simple opt-out database which can be accessed by any surgical team will save valuable time waiting for express consent to be granted. For my part I've never had any objection. I carry a donor card and they can have the lot. Well, any bits that are useable.

So, that rules out my liver and kidneys from over work. My presbyopic eyes are no use to anybody and my heart is almost certainly worn out. I’m pretty sure my arteries are all clogged up and my creaky old knee joints would be an unwelcome addition to anybody wanting to glide silently around – who wants to click when they walk upstairs? I've always said I’d be happy to go for medical experiments, but to be honest I’d be just as content on the compost heap.

I must be a monster because I struggle to understood the irrational veneration of the corporeal in death. I genuinely don’t get why bodies have to be recovered so that people can ‘move on’, really I don’t. I worked out as a child that our bodies are just big bags of chemicals and even our thoughts are simply chemical reactions - a truth displayed by distortion on a regular basis by booze, periods and brainwashing. Not that I’m without wonder and emotion, I just think that we are far too sentimental about the dead when the living could benefit from a more pragmatic approach. When you’re gone, you’re gone.

LLantysilio-go-go-swap-shop, look you

Having said that, I see an opportunity for profit this side of the veil and to that end I am willing to auction off my enormous brain to the highest bidder. I mean, come on here it is, in miraculous working order, hardly used and regularly serviced. You’d be mad not to want that massive organ pulsating in your body! 

2 comments:

  1. Didn't catch the B-Bop DL reference but did notice a strong current of Cartesian dualism. If the body (inc brain) is a 'bag of chemicals' then the mind can only be an emergent property of a chemistry we don't yet understand, n'est-pas?

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    1. That's all mind and soul is. You have to believe in god to have any other explanation.

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