Presumed consent

Presumed consent: a problematic concept.

issue, that of the increasing shortage of kidneys available for transplantation worldwide (1). As a solution for India, Kaushik favours the introduction of the “presumed consent” system to allow retrieval of organs from recently deceased persons. In this system, unless an individual has specifically expressed, in writing, during her/his lifetime, that he/she is unwilling to donate an organ foll...

Does presumed consent save lives

One policy tool that could be deployed to increase organ donation rates is legislative defaults. Currently, there are two legislative regimes: “informed consent”, in which an explicit declaration makes the person a potential organ donor; and “presumed consent”, in which an explicit declaration is required for not being a potential donor. In this study, we examine how an institutional setting, n...

Presumed consent, autonomy, and organ donation.

I argue that a policy of presumed consent for cadaveric organ procurement, which assumes that people do want to donate their organs for transplantation after their death, would be a moral improvement over the current American system, which assumes that people do not want to donate their organs. I address what I take to be the most important objection to presumed consent. The objection is that i...

Presumed consent to organ donation: a reevaluation.

What is presumed when we presume consent?

BACKGROUND The organ donor shortfall in the UK has prompted calls to introduce legislation to allow for presumed consent: if there is no explicit objection to donation of an organ, consent should be presumed. The current debate has not taken in account accepted meanings of presumption in law and science and the consequences for rights of ownership that would arise should presumed consent become...