Response to "Special Section on Children as Organ Donors" (CQ Vol 13, No 2): A critique

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics

Volumn 14, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 301-305

  Steinberg, David ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BENEFICENCE; COURT; HEALTH SURVEY; HEMODIALYSIS; HUMAN; INFORMED CONSENT; KIDNEY FAILURE; MEDICAL DECISION MAKING; MEDICAL ETHICS; NOTE; ORGAN DONOR; WELLBEING;

ANALYTICAL APPROACH; HEALTH CARE AND PUBLIC HEALTH;

BENEFICENCE; CHILD; CHILD, PRESCHOOL; CHOICE BEHAVIOR; COERCION; ETHICAL THEORY; FAMILY; HUMANS; INFORMED CONSENT; MORAL OBLIGATIONS; TISSUE AND ORGAN PROCUREMENT; TISSUE DONORS; VULNERABLE POPULATIONS;

EID: 21144433860     PISSN: 09631801     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0963180105050425     Document Type: Note

References (8)

1. Crouch RA, Elliott C. Moral agency and the family: The case of living related organ transplantation. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 1999;8:275-87;
2. Howe EG. Allowing patients to find meaning where they can. Journal of Clinical Ethics 2003;13:179-87.
3. Brown RS Jr, Russo MW, Lai M, Shiffman ML, Richardson MC, Everhart JE, Hoofnagle, JH. A survey of liver transplantation from living adult donors in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine 2003;348:818-825.
4. Data as of April 19, 2002, reported to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and provided by the United Network for Organ Sharing.
5. At Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, Michael Hurewitz, a newspaper reporter, donated a lobe of liver to his brother Adam, a physician with liver disease. Michael died of postoperative complications and Adam recovered. It can in retrospect be said that Michael was sacrificed to save his brother. Of course, no one intends for any particular donor to die as a result of their donation. However, because it is known that the surgical mortality rate is not zero, some donors will inevitably die. The global enterprise of live liver transplantation accepts a willingness to sacrifice a healthy person to save a larger number of people with advanced liver disease. In that sense live liver transplantation entails human sacrifice.
6. Judge J.J. Steinfeld, who wrote the dissent in the seminal Strunk v. Strunk (445 S.W.2d 145;169Ky) case (closely decided by a 4 to 3 vote) that approved retrieval of a kidney from a severely retarded man succinctly stated the dilemma: "My sympathies and emotions are torn between a compassion to aid an ailing young man and a duty to fully protect unfortunate members of society" and worried "because of my indelible recollection of a government which, to the everlasting shame of its citizens, embarked on a program of genocide and experimentation with human bodies I have been more troubled in reaching a decision in this case than in any other."
7. The relationship does not justify the donation; it sets boundaries that limit the potential for abuse.
8. Steinberg D. Kidney transplants from young children and the mentally retarded. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 2004;25:229-41.