Not a donor

Reading the article again i read Monday for the first time called Our political authority does not only govern over life, but also over death, i tried to remember my motivations to say no on the donor question asked in 1998. No, i don’t want to donate my organs to anyone once i am dead.

I remember thinking about it. I remember feeling that my body is my own. I wasn’t thinking about cannibalism, about necropolitics. I was basing my decision on a feeling. I didn’t want any medical professional to decide for me. I didn’t feel my body belonged to the medical profession to do with what it desired. It is irrefutable my own body. It is me.

Me.

So i said no. Not giving in to the dominating discussion with its focus on charity and giving other people another opportunity to live a full and fruitful life. No. I am my body. My mind and my body are intertwined. Inviolable. Sacrosanct.

This was based on a feeling i had. A feeling i listened to. A feeling i took seriously. Not out of a whim.

Today, with the new law approaching on 1 July 2020, i still feel the same. Even more so. I have read about the difficulty of determining brain death, i read about keeping a body semi alive to get the organs out. I’m not looking forward to my own death, and i don’t want to mess this up with surgery and decisions. I would like my death to be mourned, not celebrated because somebody else can live on.

I actually feel violated by the ad on Dutch television asking people, almost telling people to say yes to being a donor. In this i am happy i have my own mind making decisions for this.