Organ Procurement Essay Plan

Question 1

Definition

Answer 1

Organ procurement is how we get organs for transplants, including living donations, donations after death, the new opt-out system and organ trafficking/harvesting

Question 2

2006 Human Tissue Act

Answer 2

• Illegal to buy and sell organs
• Human Tissue Authority set up to regulate
• Living donors must have properly informed consent
• Children over 12 may join the list by their choice

Question 3

2021 Human Tissue Authoritarian Act

Answer 3

• Introduced opt-out law: everyone aged 16+ is assumed to want to donate their organs after death, (presumed consent) unless they opt-out

Question 4

2008 Istanbul Protocol

Answer 4

• Established an international agreement against organ trafficking and selling
• 10% of organ transplants worldwide are the result of illegal organ trafficking and sales

Question 5

Organ transplant waiting list statistic

Answer 5

• Around 10% of people on the waitlist die while waiting for an organ each year

Question 6

Moral Issue 1: Bodily Integrity

Answer 6

• Traditional Christian views were concerned about the integrity of dead bodies
• Bible verses “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit”
• 1990s: Pope John Paul II spoke in favour of organ transplants, comparing them to the sacrificial death of Jesus and presenting it as a moral good
• “Love thy neighbour as yourself”
• Islamic: Al-Maslahah “necessity makes the unlawful permissible”, within certain circumstances eg informed consent, likely success and lack of alternatives, organ donation can be a moral good.
• Diamond analogy: if someone swallowed a diamond and died, it would be acceptable to cut them open and take it out
• Islamic: Hanafi & Maliki Schools of Thought believe mutilating a dead body is always haram, and like cannibalism, our organs belong to God
• “Breaking the bone of a dead person is equal in sinfulness to breaking it while a person is alive (Hodith)
• Joseph Fletcher (Situation Ethics) thinks funerals and taboos about dead bodies are “stupidly selfish”
• Promotes organ transplants, especially after death as we do not need them

Question 7

Moral Issue 2 - Consent

Answer 7

• Roman Catholics do not agree with opt-out or organ sales, neither does Pope John Paul II as both prevent the donation from being a good act of altruism, sales especially promote greed
• Islamic: Al-Maslahah think we must have informed consent and freedom to choice in order to protect ourselves and make organ donation at all acceptable
• Humanists do not believe in bodily integrity after death and so think we can assume everyone should be an organ donor unless the specifically say other wise, greater benefit to society
• Preference Utilitarians think organ donation should always be a choice despite the high moral good it can bring due to the confliction between the principles of autonomy and utility
• Opt-out is morally problematic but maybe other incentives should be used to increase transplants
• Deontologists see presumed consent as using people as a means to an end

Question 8

Moral Issue 3 - Procuring
Organs Through Sales

Answer 8

• Roman Catholics see wealth as a gift from God for all, and not just the few and in order for wealth to be good, human dignity, rich buying organs of the poor doesn’t respect this.
• 1 Corinthians “honour God with your bodies.” 2 interpretations: is it dishonouring God to buy the parts he has created for other people or would it be honouring him to let your body live on by acquiring an organ?
• Deontologists criticise buying organs is it objectifies human beings. Immanuel Kant’s thinking that every human being is a creature of innate dignity, who must always be regarded as an end to itself and never just a means to an end.
• Islam prohibits organ sales as they commodify the human body, violating principles of respect for Allah’s creation.