Document Type
Peer-Reviewed Article
Publication Date
2020
Abstract
In recent decades, developed nations, such as the United States, have seen the gap between the demand and the supply of transplantable organs widen, despite national campaigns intended to promote donor registration. This organ shortage crisis has deprived thousands of a basic quality of life and has caused a substantial increase in the cost of alternative medical care such as dialysis. In an attempt to address the shortage, some countries have instituted explicit “opt-out” and “priority allocation” policies that operate under the principle of presumed consent and offer higher priority on transplantation lists to registered donors. This paper seeks to justify such legislation, exploring the ethical implications and highlighting the potential benefits of an opt-out and priority allocation organ donation system. It argues that such policies should be made a legislative priority in order to strengthen the national organ donation system of the United States.
DOI
10.18785/ojhe.1602.04
Recommended Citation
Shapiro, A. K., & DePergola, P. A. (2020). Presumed consent and priority allocation systems for organ donation legislation in the United States: Making the moral case. Online Journal of Health Ethics, 16(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.18785/ojhe.1602.04
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Comments
Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use, with proper attribution, in educational and other non-commercial settings.