Organ Transplants and Ethics

The idea of taking bone, skin or organs from one person and transplanting them into another has fascinated people since earliest times. Yet until the 20th century the dream of creating a healthy whole person by transplantation remained in the realm of mythology and the miraculous. The facility to transplant kidneys, hearts, and even brains raises complex ethical issues. This detailed study of the moral problems bound up with transplant surgery addresses a finely balanced distinction between ethical issues relating to its experimental nature on the one hand and those which arise when transplantation is routine. Among the issues examined are proposals for routine cadaveric harvesting, criteria for organ and tissue procurement from living donors, foetuses, non-human animals and current ethical problems with artificial implants.