Posthumous Donation and Consent
Contemporary Issues in Applied and Professional Ethics
ISBN: 978-1-78635-444-0, eISBN: 978-1-78635-443-3
Publication date: 4 August 2016
Abstract
In this chapter I consider the need for consent in two cases of posthumous donation of parts of one’s body: organ donation and the donation of sperm to allow one’s partner to conceive a child after one’s death. What kind of consent is appropriate in these cases and why? In both cases, jurisdictions tend to prefer explicit consent, although many countries now adopt presumed consent (opt-out) in the case of organ donation, and there has been a recent plea for presumed consent in the case of sperm donation as well. In this chapter I first argue that arguments in favour of presumed consent are inadequate as they stand, and then describe another way of understanding opt-out schemes, one that focuses on different models of what is at stake and on the ethical requirements incurred on such models.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Hugh Breakey, Tim Dare, Marco Grix, Ben Kroon, as well as an anonymous referee for this book, for helpful comments.
Citation
Kroon, F. (2016), "Posthumous Donation and Consent", Contemporary Issues in Applied and Professional Ethics (Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations, Vol. 15), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 103-119. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-209620160000015006
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited