Organ transplantation in the perspective of the value of the donation

Abstract

Transplantation surgery and the law have to respond to a logic of the donation. In fact this medical practice is performed within the context of a human relationship between the personal subject to the explantation and the one subject to the implantation. The interpersonal nature of the event means that the relationship should be from the donor to the tissue and organs to be transplanted should be acknowledged and protected.

The ethics of the gift are as follows: as an ethical requirement the gratuitousness depends on the principle of duty and responsability. Obviously nobody can be obliged to donate otherwise it is no longer a donation. But the donation itself also depends on the ethical principle of duty: not the duty of the law but of love and charity, which tie us to our neighbour as our "brother" in the "economy" of universal and divine paternity.

The author therefore invites all health workers to announce and witness these ethics af donation which play a special role in the medicine of transplantation of promoting the "quality of life", or simply life.

The ethics of donation not only do not contrast but actually call for legal regulations in order to be supported and encouraged. A legally which offers the real possibility to everyone, through information and training, of making a choice and expressing it, and that guarantees the donor's requirements and life also regarding "presumed consent".