Reply #115: There are places in the world where individual autonomy is not valued. [View All]

The citizens there are treated as government property. Thankfully, we have not yet crossed that threshold.

My morals do not preclude yours, nor yours mine. If I choose to give my body - which is the only thing I truly own - to another, either to save their life, or to enlighten them to science, that is my choice. The choice should not be made for me and then left for me to say I don't want to do it. You can layer onto this, the problem of dealing with those who are mentally incompetent, minors and those sentenced to die by the state.

Another thing to consider... If the state has full rights to your body after death, what is to keep them from asserting the same rights while you are alive - or, deciding you are worth more to "the people" dead? What is to keep the state from performing forced abortions, or denying the right to abortion. What is to keep them from forcing you to take medications you do not want to take? We have fought long and hard, and will are still fighting, for the right to make our own decisions about our bodies. I am not ready to give that up. I will protect my right to make decisions, as opposed to having them made for me and then me having to fill out a form in order to keep what is already mine.

How would you feel if on the day of your birth a house was picked out for you and financing arranged? (You would owe millions by the time you moved in.) Would that be alright as long as you could opt-out of it on your 18th birthday? What if, you decided you didn't like the house, it's location, or the terms? What if, all your friends, family and co-workers couldn't understand why on earth you wouldn't want to live there? What if, they made you feel stupid, or selfish for not being grateful for having had the house chosen for you? What if, you were ostracized for being so arrogant as to want to make your own decisions about where you live? What if, sometime in your first 18 years, you had some kind of religious epiphany and truly believed with your entire being that that particular house was evil, or somehow against your own conscience? What if you put off, in indecision or under duress, signing the opt-out paper by the deadline and you were forced to live in the house forever? What if you simply forgot to sign it before it was too late?

Moral arguments are as legitimate as any other.