The ethics of organ donation

As organ transplantation is physically possible within a tension between common biological properties and individual immunities, so it is ethically possible within a tension between individual personality in full integrity and the human community of which each member, social by nature, is an organic part. Ethical donation is by consent, explicit or presumed, spontaneously offered or procured by request. Altruism or commercial dealing is now a live issue in organ procurement, whether cadaveric or by live donation, related or unrelated. Attention is given to children in transplantation, and to new developments with fetal organs, neural tissue, bone marrow and xenografts.Given all that medical science and skill can now offer, patients are still free to decline. But O alas, so long, so farre Our bodies why doe wee forbeare? They are ours, though they are not wee, Wee are The intelligences, they the spheares. John Donne, The Extasie The humanity of transplantation Ethics is a product of tension. The ethics of transplantation derives from a tension between two poles, bodily integrity and human solidarity. As persons we are embodied. Our bodies are unique, individual instruments by which we live, in reflection, expression, action, reception, relation. Bodily integrity, therefore, must be protected: we count it a wrong to kill, to harm, to abuse, to mutilate the human body; even to denigrate or disvalue it. That wrong can also be, in terms of law a crime, in terms of religion a sin. As persons we are also social beings: dependent on others for nurture, Correspondence fo- for gaining essential skills and for moral education for life in human Prof G R Dunstan, society. To society, community organized, we owe obligations, under-9 Mar/field Avenue, i i i 1 • 1 T-I • • r Pennsylvania Exeter taken voluntarily or, when necessary, imposed. Ihe integration o