Ethics of autopsy

Parallel case (a model, not today's answer): Should a state switch to an opt-out organ-donation system, in which every adult is presumed to be a donor at death unless they registered a refusal while alive?\n\nClaim: A state should adopt an opt-out organ-donation system rather than the current opt-in system.\n\nEvidence: Countries that use opt-out systems, such as Spain and Austria, report far higher donor rates than similar opt-in countries, and demand is severe. Thousands of people in the United States die each year while waiting for an organ that never becomes available. Under opt-out, anyone who does not want to donate can still register a refusal at any time, so the choice remains available to those who use it.\n\nReasoning: The public benefit of saving more lives is large and measurable, and it grows directly out of a policy that changes only the default, not a person's actual right to decide. I recognize the real tension with bodily autonomy, because many people never register either way and a default can feel like it decides for them. But because a refusal is always honored and easy to record, the policy respects the people who care most about the choice while capturing organs from the many who would have agreed but never signed up. When the cost of the current default is measured in preventable deaths, shifting the default is justified.