Medical Considerations of Procurement

Abstract

Any discussion of the ethics of retrieval of organs and tissues from human sources for transplantation must surely be informed by a clear understanding of the medical issues involved. On the one hand, one has to be concerned with the safety and dignity of the donor. The morality of taking organs or tissues from a living human depends on the risk, discomfort, and inconvenience to the donor, as well as attention to the authenticity of the donor’s consent, whereas the morality of retrieval of cadaveric organs and tissues turns largely on the assurances that the donor is, indeed, dead. On the other hand, the motivating factor for organ and tissue donation is the ethical good to be obtained from it, and this is determined in large measure by the benefits realized by the recipient(s) of the retrieved organs and tissues. These are all issues of medical fact or judgment. Informed ethical debate must deal with these medical realities, and it is the traditional role of the physician, like the expert witness in court, to set out the scientific realities, the likely medical consequences of ethical choices, in an objective fashion with which the ethicist can deal. It should also be recognized, though, that there is not an objective and well agreed upon line between medical fact and ethical judgment. Though physicians are concerned every day with the informed