following on from a question yesterday..

[missjef]

regarding what you wish to be done to your body when you die.. i was wondering how many of you wish your body and/or organs to be donated.
Also another question is how would you feel if you donated your body to medical science and then it gets used for dissection or similar?
Just makes me think sometimes, about whether people would wish their bodies to be used for things like public dissections or displays like that german dr Gunther Von Hagens does.
Also i read a book called "curious tales of the human cadaver" which was about things which happen to the body after we die.. and it pointed out that bodies donated to medical science can be used for a range of things such as being used as crash test dummies, or to be used in 'body farms' which basically put the cadavers in various places to see what happens so they can use the information when investigating a murder or such like.. so would you mind if you donated your body and it ended up in some place like that or infact being used as a crash test dummy?

[Theland]

Dumped on the steps of 10 downing street, with a suitable placard complaining about the NHS

[boro1986]

I know i should donate my organs when i die but i wanna be buied with everything thats mine. And anyway my organs will be knackered you would be better off getting George Bests liver than mine

[snagged]

Personally I wouldn't mind... when you're dead you're dead... If something positive can come from my remains then why not?

I doubt they'd be able to use much of me though as I smoke, don't keep myself in 'tip-top' shape and my eyes ain't too good either!

...crash test dummy for me then! ;o(

[4getmenot]

No wouldn�t sign a donor card because there�s always that thought that you might be near death and someone needs your bits and they don�t bother helping you because someone else can be helped. I give blood that�s my way of helping people.

[IggyB]

if i die whilst still young enough to have useful organs i would hope that these would be harvested and used for donation - it seems wasteful in the extreme to just throw these away when someones life could be saved by reusing them... i'm all for recycling and luckily i know my family are just the same so there will be no emotional issues for them when it comes to disposing of my remains, once i'm dead i require none of it so there should be no emotional connection to whats left.

its for these reasons that i wouldn't mind my body being used for crash testing if someone thought it useful or even to help scientists understanding of decomposition - if it can help save a life by improving safety then brilliant, if it can help catch a murder also brilliant.

however i draw the line at the bodyworks thing - whilst i found the display interesting i really would not like my body strung up on display for entertainment purposes ... if they could convince me that it wasn't for entertainment then maybe, but when i was there one of the bodies and been manipulated and cut up to resemble harry potter (skin of head stretched into point, skin on back pulled out to make a cape, throw some glasses on etc) so i doubt anyone will be ablt o convince me that there is anything useful going on there

[ummmm1]

I don't care what happens to me. As mentioned above I do all the things that I shouldn't so my organs would probably be crap anyway

[snagged]

They'll be a seat next to me ummm1... SPLAT!

[idalovett]

I'm on the national organ donors register and am happy with that because if a part of me is useful to someone else then good. I won't need it and if another person benefits or has a better quality of life then I would be so pleased for them. There are so many tests carried out that I know when I am dead I well and truly am and there is no danger to being bumped off early for organ harvesting. I am not one to have my body dissected by a medical school or put on show like Von Hagens does and treats his cadavers, but I am more than happy to pass a few working bits over to someone who needs them and have the rest of me buried.

[Ctrak]

What's with the whole thing about mortality...'tis all a bit worrying.

Can't we all just have a lie down, maybe listen to Automatic For The People, etc.?

[unruliejulie]

This is a subject hat i feel strongly about missjeff, i have been registered as an organ donor for the last couple of years but before that i always carried a card. i just wanted it doubly clear. I would donate my children's organs too, without question if, God forbid, anything ever happened to either of them and i would feel proudand honoured that they live on through someone else. If you can help someone else to have a life who otherwise wouldnt, then why not?

Not quite so keen on the medical research stuff but i do think that when you're gone, you're gone, the body is just a shell, its what was inside that matters, your soul!

[arburgirl]

i would have gladly donated my organs for good use, but i never imagined in a million years that you could be used as a crash test dummy, the thought makes me cringe.
as it turns out i had cancer a few years back and although treated and still here ! , I don't imagine anyone would want a potential cancerous part of me !

[andy-hughes]

I have always told my family that the medics can have anything useful, and then please burn the rest. I have no attatchment to my body per se, and I don't believe in any 'afterlife', so they can do what ever they like with my remains - perhaps using them as a 'horrible example' illustration would be most fitting!!!

[curlyfilm]

they can take the lot except my eyes......

"windows of the soul" as me nan said

[Metz]

I'm the same as curlyfilm ... Gary Gilmore's Eyes by ADVERTS always makes me think twice too