Lives and choices, give and take: Altruism and organ procurement

In 2015, Wales introduced a deemed consent: soft opt-out system for organ procurement in order to address the chronic shortage of organs for transplant. Early statistical evidence suggests that this has had a positive impact on cadaveric organ donation. Such a system for procurement has previously b...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Thornton, Vicky (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage 2019
In: Nursing ethics
Year: 2019, Volume: 26, Issue: 2, Pages: 587-597
Further subjects:B Policy
B Organ Procurement
B opt-in
B Altruism
B opt-out
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:In 2015, Wales introduced a deemed consent: soft opt-out system for organ procurement in order to address the chronic shortage of organs for transplant. Early statistical evidence suggests that this has had a positive impact on cadaveric organ donation. Such a system for procurement has previously been dismissed by the Organ Donation Taskforce, who suggested that opting out could potentially undermine the concept of donated organs as gifts and this could then negatively impact the number of organs offered for transplant. Considerable weight was placed upon the need to retain the altruistic gift element associated with an opt-in system. This article will consider the role of altruism in an organ procurement policy. A broad utilitarian approach will be taken when putting forward the arguments in favour of adopting a weak altruism position in a soft opt-out system for procurement with a combined registry.
ISSN:1477-0989
Contains:Enthalten in: Nursing ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/0969733017710985