Red or Blue Organs

It turns out that your attitude to organ donation might be hiding in the ballot box. According to researchers from the University of Queensland, those of a left‑leaning persuasion are far more willing to sign up as organ donors, happily imagining their kidneys going off to lead a new life somewhere in Milton Keynes. Meanwhile, conservatives tend to hang on to their bits like they’re family heirlooms – as if Granny’s corneas might one day be worth a fortune on Antiques Roadshow.

The same Queensland team dug into why this might be. Conservatives, they say, place a “higher value on bodily integrity” – which is academic shorthand for “don’t touch my spleen.” Add in a splash of magical thinking – the “tempting fate” theory – and you have a group that seems to believe signing the donor register is basically sending the Grim Reaper an engraved invitation.

Across Europe, things get more nuanced. A University of Bath analysis of Eurobarometer data found that just having any political affiliation – red, blue or the colour of a decomposing cabbage – makes you more likely to tick the donor box than those who couldn’t give a toss about politics. Apparently, simply taking a view on bin collections or tax policy makes you more charitable about where your pancreas ends up.

But here’s the interesting twist: while the right may be reluctant to donate their organs, there’s no evidence they’re equally reluctant to receive them. No peer‑reviewed study has caught a self‑declared conservative nobly refusing a new liver for reasons of ideological purity. Research into religious and cultural reluctance shows the pattern clearly – plenty won’t donate, but if a transplant is needed, the answer is usually “yes please” rather than “keep your filthy socialist kidneys away from me.”

Of course, fairness demands a little counterbalance. If conservatives cling to their livers, the left can be accused of clinging just as fiercely to the 45p tax rate – and, according to recruitment stats, to the comfort of not enlisting in the armed forces. The right might not want to give you their liver, but the left probably won’t storm the beach to save it.

Then there’s the real irony: the opt-out system. In countries where you’re automatically assumed to donate unless you say otherwise, altruism shoots up – largely because no one gets round to the paperwork. Left-leaning folk still lead the way, waving their donor cards like Glastonbury tickets, while those on the right clutch their livers, muttering about “property rights.”

So next time someone bangs on about “owning their body” while voting against universal healthcare, remember this: they may cling to their organs like priceless antiques – but if the worst happens, they’ll take yours in a heartbeat. And the left? They’ll happily give you their spleen… provided you don’t ask them for a tax cut or a rifle.