The dead donor rule, voluntary active euthanasia, and capital punishment

Bioethics

Volumn 25, Issue 5, 2011, Pages 236-243

  Coons, Christian ^a   Levin, Noah ^a  

^a BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Capital punishment; Dead donor rule; Euthanasia; Organ donation

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ETHICS; HUMAN; MORALITY; PUNISHMENT; TRANSPLANTATION; VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA;

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT; ETHICAL ANALYSIS; EUTHANASIA, ACTIVE, VOLUNTARY; HUMANS; MORALS; TISSUE AND ORGAN PROCUREMENT;

EID: 79956144615     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: 14678519     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2009.01767.x     Document Type: Article

References (35)

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3. and the debate in the 14 Aug issue (359) of NEJM about infant heart transplants2008
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8. For example, changing the setting would be better for the victim on a hedonistic model because this method of death is no more painful than any alternative, nor is it any less pleasurable. More importantly, the victim experiences the minor satisfaction that accompanies knowing that her request was granted and that her death may not be a complete 'waste'. Moreover, by changing the setting we avoid the pain and stress caused by her beliefs that 1) she will not die as she wishes and 2) bystanders have ignored her simple and important last request. On desire-fulfillment or preference-satisfaction views it is even more obvious why changing the setting promotes the victim's welfare. Finally, on more complex or rarified views of personal well-being (such as those defended by P. Railton. Moral Realism. Philos Rev198695163-207
9. S. Darwall2002Welfare and Rational CarePrinceton, NJ: Princeton University Press
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11. L.W. Sumner1996Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press
12. R. Kraut2007What is Good and WhyThe Ethics of Well-Being. CambridgeHarvard University Press), changing the setting either benefits the victim or makes no difference at all
13. Of course, as an anonymous reviewer pointed out, in some cases, a family member may be horrified that the VAE is carried out by this method. And perhaps this horror could qualify as a kind of harm. If so, then in these cases there would be an other-regarding concern. However, these sorts of harms (if they qualify as such) are not necessary or unique to using RVO. Family members may be equally or further distressed by the fact that the patient is being suffocated or having his organs caused to fail. In addition, there's no reason to suspect that this is a regular feature of VAE via RVO. Therefore, this concern does not favour 'removing this method from the table' nor does it suggest that there typically are other-regarding reasons not to carry out VAE via RVO
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15. Procurement of kidneys accounts for approximately 95% of living organ procurements (based on Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) data, ). Kidney procurement is usually done through laparoscopic surgery, a minimally invasive and minimally harmful procedure in which the abdomen is inflated and a series of small incisions are used to perform surgery via camera. The donor is hospitalized for only a few days for the donation. See USC Kidney Transplant Program. Kidney: Live-Donor Laparoscopic Kidney Transplant (Nephrectomy). Los Angeles, CA: USC. Available at: [Accessed 16 Sept2008
16. Royal Dutch Society for the Advancement of Pharmacy. 1994. Administration and Compounding of Euthanasic Agents. The Hague, The Netherlands: Royal Dutch Society for the Advancement of Pharmacy. Available at: [Accessed 16 Sept2008
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19. For the most persuasive and important defence of paternalism, see G. Dworkin. Paternalism. Monist19725664-84
20. Nearly all Generalists and their Particularist detractors accept this standard. See for example: W.D. Ross. The Right and the Good. Oxford, UK: Clarendon191930
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27. R. Audi2001The Good in the RightPrinceton, NJ: Princeton University Press71-73
28. For an article critical of this standard, see forthcoming in Oxford Studies in MetaethicsP. Väyrynen A Theory of Hedged Moral Principles.)
29. J. Dancy1993Moral Reasons. Boston, MA: Blackwell.
30. It does not threaten our case to conceive of killing so broadly as to count switching the setting as an instance of killing. If even that counts as killing, then one now undermines the claim that there's always something to be said against killing. So it seems that the objector cannot have it 'both ways'both that switching the setting is an instance of killing and that there's always something to be said against killing
31. Bernat, op. cit. note 2128
32. Koppelman, op. cit. note 2
33. We are actually unclear as to why Veatch thinks this is true. It strikes us that one would have the motivation for changing the definition of death under these circumstances only if one is wedded to DDR. Expanding the class of organ donors to include living patients does not clearly entail shrinking the class of dead patients as Veatch seems to think. While it might be true that the cardiopulmonary definition of death is conceptually simpler (and practically easier to apply), this does not entail that a definition of death based on brain criteria is incorrect and ought to be abandoned
34. Veatch, op. cit. note 411
35. See, for example, the works of R.D. Truog and his colleagues (R.D. Truog & W.M. Robinson. Role of Brain Death and the Dead-Donor Rule in the Ethics of Organ Transplantation. Crit Care Med2003312391-2396