Organ Donations - Living Donors

Question 1

Living Donation - KU

Answer 1

• Living Donation has a few key terms that, when understood, bring a bit of clarity to the living donation process.
• Directed donation is when a person makes a donation to someone they know;this could be a family member or friend
• one issue with directed is that the donor is not always a suitable match for the patient they wish to help; in these circumstances the donor and patient take part in what is known as paired or pooled donation
• This is a sharing scheme that enable kidneys to be ‘exchanged’ with other pairs in a similar situation
• There is also what is known as altruistic donation; the term altruistic is whenever someone shows selfless concern for the wellbeing of others
• Altruistic donation could take one of two forms
• it could be directed altruistic donation, when a donor offers their donation to a specific person they don’t know but may have read about in the news or heard about on social media, or it could be non-directed altruistic donation, when a donation is made to a stranger

Question 2

Moral Issues raised by Living Donors; Coercion

Answer 2

• Is the living door giving altruistically (selfless concern for the wellbeing of others), or do they feel coerced (forced into it)by outside pressures, such as emotional pressure, threats or illegal payments?

Question 3

Moral Issues raised by Living Donors; Organs as a commodity

Answer 3

• Organ transplant commercialism and the black market for organ donation create the issue of organs becoming a commodity in great demand
• Does living donation open up the opportunity for the buying and selling of organs?
• The illegal black market trade in organs is an area of great concern

Question 4

Moral Issues raised by Living Donors; Risk

Answer 4

• It is clear that a living donor is putting themself forward for medical procedure that involves a risk to their own health and wellbeing, is it morally justified to put yourself in harms way for the good of someone else?

Question 5

Moral Issues raised by Living Donors; Principle of non-harm

Answer 5

• Doctors take the Hippocratic oath, which has a principle to ‘first do no harm’;is operating or performing surgery doing harm and putting the donor at risk?
• If so, is it ever morally justifiable for a doctor to put a doctor at risk?

Question 6

Moral Issues raised by Living Donors; Quote

Answer 6

Pope John Paul II said ‘Accordingly, any procedure which tends to commercialise human organs or to consider them as items of exchange or trade must be considered morally unacceptable, because to use the body as an object is to violate the dignity of the human person’.

Question 7

Religious Response to Moral Issues raised by Living Donors; Roman Catholic Church

Answer 7

• encourages organ donation and their response to living donors would be similar
• A recent article indicated that the Catholic Church had consistently encouraged its followers to consider organ donation as if consider the act of donating organs as both a gift and an intricate good

Question 8

Religious Response to Moral Issues raised by Living Donors; Muslims

Answer 8

• Many Muslims would have a similar response to the Roman Catholic view on living donation
• The institute of Islamic Jurisprudence states that ‘living/altruistic organ donation is permissible provided harm to the donor is negligible or relatively minor that it does not disrupt the life of the donor’.
• This illustrates that the issues concerning risk and harm are key to the morality of a decision

Question 9

Non-Religious Response to Moral Issues raised by Living Donors; Humanism

Answer 9

• Humanism is in favour of organ donation and Humanists would have no problem with people becoming living donors
• living donation would allow Humanists to show empathy and concern for other human beings, values that are central to a Humanist
• Coercion and risk are two moral issues that must, however, be considered alongside the Humanist response

Question 10

Non-Religious Response to Moral Issues raised by Living Donors; Humanism Quote

Answer 10

British Humanist Association states if someone wants to be a living donor they must, ‘have enough information to make a rational choice for herself about the risks of such a procedure to her wellbeing and life compared with the benefits to the wellbeing and health of the person needing that organ’.
This means that Humanists would support living donation provided it is the donors personal choice and the donor understands the risks that are involved