Blood: The Great Forgotten Element of Care Ethics

In France, blood transfusion gives rise to debates only when a scandal bursts out, as we have known in the 1980's and 1990's with the "affaire du sang contamin'. Otherwise, once a number of administrative and prophylactic precautions have been taken, transfusion is not further discussed in ethical terms, as if questions related to transfusion were solved better than in any other domain of care ethics. The speeches take on a seemingly axiomatic character: it is well understood that the donation of blood must be anonymous; that it must be gratuitous; that selling one's blood is contrary -or would be contrary- to ethics; and so is and would be knowing the person to whom it is given while the recipient knows his donor. What is surprising is that these axioms seem self-evident; and what is even more surprising is that those who are supposed exceeding the level of common opinion hold fewer seminars on issues related to blood transfusion than on other issues of medical ethics, yet strongly related to them such as, for example, ethical questions of organ transplants. Is not the blood similar to a tissue and assimilable to an organ?