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Normative consent and opt-out organ donation

Normative consent and opt-out organ donation
Normative consent and opt-out organ donation
One way of increasing the supply of organs available for transplant would be to switch to an opt-out system of donor registration. This is typically assumed to operate on the basis of presumed consent, but this faces the objection that not all of those who fail to opt out would actually consent to the use of their cadaveric organs. This paper defuses this objection, arguing that people's actual, explicit or implicit, consent to use their organs is not needed. It borrows David Estlund's notion of ‘normative consent’ from the justification of political authority and applies it to the case of organ donation. According to this idea, when it is wrong to withhold consent to something, the moral force of that lack of consent may be null and void. If it is wrong of a person to refuse to donate their cadaveric organs to others, then it may be that their actual consent is not needed. This supports an opt-out system, which provides protection for those who have genuine reasons to refuse donation, and spares the worries as to what the deceased would actually have wanted.
1473-4257
84-87
Saunders, Ben
aed7ba9f-f519-4bbf-a554-db25b684037d
Saunders, Ben
aed7ba9f-f519-4bbf-a554-db25b684037d

Saunders, Ben (2010) Normative consent and opt-out organ donation. Journal of Medical Ethics, 36 (2), 84-87. (doi:10.1136/jme.2009.033423).

Record type: Article

Abstract

One way of increasing the supply of organs available for transplant would be to switch to an opt-out system of donor registration. This is typically assumed to operate on the basis of presumed consent, but this faces the objection that not all of those who fail to opt out would actually consent to the use of their cadaveric organs. This paper defuses this objection, arguing that people's actual, explicit or implicit, consent to use their organs is not needed. It borrows David Estlund's notion of ‘normative consent’ from the justification of political authority and applies it to the case of organ donation. According to this idea, when it is wrong to withhold consent to something, the moral force of that lack of consent may be null and void. If it is wrong of a person to refuse to donate their cadaveric organs to others, then it may be that their actual consent is not needed. This supports an opt-out system, which provides protection for those who have genuine reasons to refuse donation, and spares the worries as to what the deceased would actually have wanted.

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More information

Published date: 2010
Organisations: Faculty of Social, Human and Mathematical Sciences

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 370360
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/370360
ISSN: 1473-4257
PURE UUID: 191800ad-ddb2-4686-956b-1ecaa5026299
ORCID for Ben Saunders: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5147-6397

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Date deposited: 22 Oct 2014 11:56
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:50

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