The Welsh Organ Donor Vote.

Like I said it's an important issue. So what better time to deal with it then when you're kinda drunk and slightly less than legal.

Anyway yesterday the Welsh Assembly voted to allow organ donation with only presumed consent. Rather proving that while it's an "Assembly" rather than a full "Parliament" some of them can read now and everything this bill was so loaded with amendments that it should never have seen it get to a vote. Basically though the bill allows doctors in Wales, UK to remove human organs from a dead patient and transplant them into a dying patient without the prior, informed consent of the organ donor. Believe it or not this is actually a major civil liberties issue. After all to a limited extent it gives "The State" ownership over of the bodies of it's citizens/subjects. However I'll agree that on the issue of human organ donation this simply isn't a question.

However the sad fact is that despite the precedent set by the Nuremberg codes there still people in this nation who would like to take it much further. For example there are many in the UK who have claimed that because I ticked the "Organ Donor" box on my drivers license (yes I have one) they are entitled to do whatever they like to me despite that not being  in the small print of the document I signed. Therefore the implication is that the Welsh Assembly was being asked to vote in favour of the recent Swansea Measles outbreak even if I don't remember that being in either translation of the text.

Anyway beyond the discussion of the inviolability of the human body, blood libel and OMG! Why do we still pretend Kosovo is a Country? this raises issues about my and my paternal grandmother's case - specifically whether she should be exhumed so a post-mortem/autopsy can be performed.

If you had asked me this question in September 2012 my answer would have been a definite "Yes." After all I feel a dissection of her brain would have simply confirmed what the CT scans showed - that there was none of the scarring consistent with Vascular Dementia.

However on the day my right elbow failed and my tears kissed the carpet I heard she'd died of a "massive stroke." Although I never saw the scans I saw the patient so I'll agree that it wiped out the left, frontal lobe of the brain. Since roughly 30% of that brain was destroyed and has since been sitting, rotting in the ground for around 8 months I would say that the result of any autopsy will be, at best inconclusive.

Therefore we have to weigh the potential results of any autopsy against the emotional burden that an exhumation will bear of the family. I can only speak as one member of the blood family who never got to go to the original funeral but I am confident that I can make my case without having to disturb her further. So once again I feel we are putting the cart before the whores.

As for the April Jones campaign I feel I should speak more fully. However in the meantime though I would say that Mark Bridger's actions are considered to be a "stranger abduction." Year on year there are roughly 5 of these incidents a year. That average has not changed since the 1970's. Therefore  no amount of restrictions on Internet pornography is going to prevent another one being taken nor bring her back. I just hope the yokels remember the Jones' name.

02:15 on 3/7/13.