The Morality and Utility of Organ Transplantation

Organ transplantation is at once a technology that raises new ethical problems and a good testing ground for various moral principles. It has become a common procedure in some countries and, at least in the United States, promises to become even more so. It poses questions about costs and benefits as well as the very large question of whether we should try to renew human life indefinitely and, if so, at what cost. It raises the problem of whether organs are the property of their possessors – at least when the possessors are competent adults. It raises issues of organ sales, of what might be called donor recruitment, of informed consent, of reparations when transplant fails, of eligibility for transplant, and of competition for medical time and expertise between transplantation and other, less dramatic kinds of medical care. This essay touches on all of these topics, with the aim of identifying the broad dimensions of the ethical problems of organ transplantation and some of the moral principles that may help us solve them.