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NDT Advance Access originally published online on December 4, 2008
Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation 2009 24(2):357-360; doi:10.1093/ndt/gfn669
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© The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of ERA-EDTA. All rights reserved.For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org


Is altruistic-directed living unrelated organ donation a legal fiction?

Miran Epstein1 and Gabriel Danovitch2

1 Academic Unit for Human Science and Medical Ethics, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary, University of London, London 2 Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Correspondence and offprint requests to: Miran Epstein, Senior Lecturer in Medical Ethics and Law, Academic Unit for Human Science and Medical Ethics, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary, University of London, 2 Newark Street, London E1 2AT, UK. Tel: +020-7882-7086; Fax: +020-7882-2552; E-mail: m.tiftein@qmul.ac.uk

Keywords: altruism; commerce in organs; legal fiction; living donation

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.



   Introduction
 
The majority of pertinent political and professional bodies now regard ‘altruism’ and ‘solidarity’ as the sole foundations of any acceptable donor–recipient interaction. The European Directive, for example, makes an unequivocal statement in this respect.

As a matter of principle, tissue and cell application programmes should be founded on the philosophy of voluntary and unpaid donation, anonymity of both donor and recipient, altruism of the donor and solidarity between donor and recipient. [1]

Similar views have equally been endorsed inter alia by American law, the World Health Organization (WHO), and, most recently, The Transplantation Society (TTS) [2–4]. Whatever the dictionary definition of ‘altruism’ and ‘solidarity’, in the legal transplant jargon they have come to be understood as any motivation for organ donation other than such that are formed under consent-invalidating coercion. In fact, unless otherwise specified, the term ‘altruistic donation’ has come to mean ‘non-commercial donation’.

. . . [Full Text of this Article]



   Rumour, impression and empirical evidence
 


   Conditions and criteria
 


   Why does it matter?
 


   Remedies and adverse effects
 


   In lieu of conclusion: more fictions?
 

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