You Only Live Once (Unless you have all the spare parts you need for a new body.)

From August this year, every Finnish citizen will automatically be an organ donor when they die. Unless you have crappy organs of course, in which case you will be buried with all your crappy organs the old fashioned way. This is great progress from an opt-in kind of policy to a policy where you have to opt-out if you don’t want to give your heart to the needy. Countless lives will be saved just by this one law, but while it is all very good, I can’t help but see the downside.

The thing is, I think there will suddenly be so many organs available that people will start getting picky with what they accept. Kind of like how you’ll soon be able to pick what your kid is going to look like. You know, when the father in the house says, “I’ll take the brunet gene, the tall and handsome gene and the hung-like-a-horse gene for our boy, thank you very much.” In which case the mother in the house will have to get her say in, “We also want the sensitive gene, the Robert Pattinson gene and the momma’s boy gene” and then the father will be all, “No, no momma’s boy gene, we want the lumberjack gene instead” and the mother will be all, “My son is not growing up to be a lumberjack!” and the father will be all, “Fine! You can have your son with someone else!” and the mother will be all, “Can we have a refund?”

Nowadays when you need a lung or a kidney you have to wait in line, be patient and take what’s offered, just like with kids. We all know the neighbor got the good kid, and probably the good liver too, but that’s just the way it goes. But given the opportunity I bet people will start getting very picky. “I’d like the lung of a nice-looking, clean 24-year old. Preferably one that died peacefully in his sleep.” When you suddenly find yourself in dire need of a new appendix the doctor will probably pick out a few for you to look at and you can choose the one most to your liking, “I’ll take the pink one with the gooey stuff on the end.”

"I'd like one that's not as prone to bleeding, preferably with a picture of Elvis on a unicorn jumping over a rainbow, please."

It almost makes me want to shop for a new kidney just for the sake of it. Luckily M’s eye is all red and infected, I’m sure we’ll be shopping for a new eye any day now. I can’t wait! In fact, I could shop for a new liver while we’re at it, you can never have too many spare parts. *

You Only Live Once (Unless you have all the spare parts you need for a new body.)