"Caught in the Organ Draft"

1972 Silverberg, Robert (b. 1935). “Caught in the Organ Draft.” and walk now gently through the fire and other science fiction stories. Ed. Roger [Paul] Elwood (Philadelphia, PA: Chilton Books Co., 1972), 127-41. [Science Fiction Book Club ed.] (Philadelphia, PA: Chilton Books Co., 1972), 123-36. Rpt. in The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg. Volume Three: Something Wild is Loose: 1969-72 (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2008), 368-80 with an author’s note on 367; and in Brave New Worlds. Ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2011), 375-84; 2nd ed. as Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories. Ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2012), 375-84. Merril, PSt

Transplant dystopia in which young, fit people are drafted (“the organ draft”) to provide an organ to keep the elderly alive, and the protagonists is a nineteen year old man who has received his draft notice requiring him to report to Transplant House for a final physical. This can be any organ and may result in death; if not, the person then becomes eligible to receive organs from others for as long as they live. Keeping old people alive through transplants means that the same policies continue and a war drags on, now fought by robots so as to not waste the organs of the young. There is a League for Bodily Sanctity in the US, and some countries have passed Bodily Sanctity.