Defense Date
2-22-2024
Graduation Date
Spring 5-10-2024
Availability
One-year Embargo
Submission Type
dissertation
Degree Name
PhD
Department
Health Care Ethics
School
McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts
Committee Chair
Gerard Magill
Committee Member
Joris Gielen
Committee Member
Peter Osuji
Keywords
Ethics, healthcare, organ donation, organ transplantation, consent, vascularized composite allotransplantation
Abstract
Organ or tissue donation has proven to be a lifesaving intervention for patients battling failing or failed organs or tissues. However, scholars have raised concerns about just and rational procurement and transplantation in a global shortage. This dissertation addresses normative approaches for organ/tissue procurement, allocation and transplantation to highlight the related pivotal ethical issues. It defends normative approaches such as queuing and nudging, and upholds their universal obligatoriness. It provides illumination about the demands of an effective solution to who shall receive or give organs when not all can. The introductory chapter employs common morality as a principal source of moral justification to show that donation and transplant in common morality focuses on risk/benefit analysis.
Following the introductory chapter, chapter two presents ethical justification for living organ donation, relying on the presupposition that it is acceptable if living organ donation is not harmful. The third chapter analyses the nature of consent to cadaveric donation, assessing death declarations, proposing uniform standards of death independent of culture and locality, standards that are compatible with the dead donor rule. Chapter four examines the decision-making processes for living organ donation of adults, minors, and the incapacitated. It shows that deriving donor consent through nudging has justification for maintaining the autonomy of patients. Chapter Five assesses emerging issues arising from transplant interventions, such as the required consent for VCA donations and the communal consent required for xenotransplants. This dissertation ultimately provides a defense for organ/tissue donation rooted in justified patient consent.
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Sarpong, F. (2024). A Critique of the Pivotal Ethical Issues in Organ/Tissue Donation & Transplantation (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/2351
Additional Citations
Magill, Gerard, and James Benedict. Resilience in Ecology and Health. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023.