Organ Donation / Transplant

The transfer of living material from one body to save the life of another began with in the 19th century with blood transfusion but it was in the 1950s that the first successful organ transplants started, beginning with kidneys, then hearts, then hearts and lungs and more recently multiple organ transplantations. Ethically there are a number of issues raised by these practices and a range of moral attitudes towards them. The simplest approach is that of utilitarianism which holds that than an action is right if it maximises welfare. On this account whether to transplant or not, and whether to seek consent of either party or relatives al would depend on what would optimise welfare. Ironically, however, among the familiar objections to utilitarianism is that it would license harvesting body parts from a healthy individual to provide for others in need of the organs. At the other extreme is the view that it is never permissible to transfer living material from one body to another. Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse blood transfusions and some Jews and Muslims are opposed to the taking or organs from dead bodies but it is rare to find complete and absolute prohibition of transferring living material from one body to another. The ethical concerns tend to be around issues of informed consent and the circumstances in which organs are obtained. Some argue that criteria of death have changed to allow the harvesting of organs from still living bodies, and there is concern about the selling of organs especially from the poor to the affluent. There is also debate about whether law should require explicit agreement to have organs removed from corpses for transplantation, or whether this should be permissible except where consent has been refused.