Monday, January 3, 2011

Those who run like fuck away from Omelas to dodge the Organ Draft

From the Heatwarming $mas News department, we learn that the Daily Torygraph is in favour of creating children for the purpose of harvesting their internal organs. Year-old infants are volunteering for painful invasive non-risk-free surgery of no personal benefit:
Megan Matthews would have died but for tissue donated by her baby brother Max
It would be of scientific value to know the exact words or gestures used by Max in his self-sacrificing donation. Sadly, the Torygraph's contributor glosses over the details and goes on instead about "the most priceless present a child can give his sibling: the precious gift of life". Excuse me while I fantasise about Olga Craig waking up after a night of gigolos and blow to find herself in a bathtub full of ice-cubes, with freshly-sutured incisions across her torso, and a note stuck to the bathroom mirror that reads "Thank you for the Precious Gift of Life!"
Early bone-marrow donation:
Thor's goat Tanngnjóstr
The parents swear that their spare-part child will grow up feeling just as well-loved and as important to them as the pre-existing sibling. They may find it easier if they don't tell him that he was one of a dozen embryos fertilised in test-tubes at the same time, of which he was the one with a close-enough DNA match to be therapeutic while the others were flushed.

The Riddled Bioethics Panel informs me that it is still considered unethical to clone an individual so the clone can serve as a source of replacement organs, but this will probably change as the technology matures and suitable euphemisms are found.

9 comments:

Hamish Mack said...

Olga Craig is the Sunday Telegraph's Assistant Editor.-wackaloonipedia LOL
Rich folks have servants for that sort of emergency.
"Parker, I need your leg"
"Yes, milady"

Smut Clyde said...

Shorter Smut: I am shocked, shocked!! to find that the Daily Torygraph is defending the actions of some middle-class parents by intellectual dishonesty, appeals to sentimentality, and perverting the meanings of words.

Hamish Mack said...

Sir, you refer to a paper of Record, Sir.
Or "they got some form", if you prefer

Substance McGravitas said...

I was crushed when my parents informed me I was created to mow the lawn.

ckc (not kc) said...

...mom always liked the pre-existing sibling best

Smut Clyde said...

This post really wants to be a Lawyers Guns & Money thread.
What it really needs is a dingbat troll trying to show the weakness of my ethical philosophy, by postulating a series of hypothetical situations involving tissue transplanted from infants without their consent to save the lives of magical unicorns.

fish said...

The Riddled Bioethics Panel informs me that it is still considered unethical to clone an individual so the clone can serve as a source of replacement organs

Well duh, that would be silly. You have to engineer out the original flaws first. That is more expensive (up front costs only) than having another kid.

Whale Chowder said...

Do I really need to point out that the infant in question was harvested post-birth and thus beyond the reach of ethical considerations?

Case closed. Move along, nothing to see here.

Whale Chowder said...

Dagnabit, "Steve" above is me. I. Whatever.