Do I Own My Organs?

Abstract

This chapter evaluates the author's narrative after her meeting with Deb Porter Gill. It offers a variety of outcomes if the author had not liked Deb and withdrawn the offer to donate. That could have been for any reason, including political values, lifestyle, religion, or skin color. The chapter argues that living donors are treated by the law and by doctors as the owners of their bodies, and their body parts are considered goods that they can donate or not to whomever they want. The chapter examines the justice-based approach to organ allocation. In contrast with the living donors, cadaveric donors are generally put into national pools and allocated according to nationally agreed-upon criteria. The chapter states that their use is governed not by the autonomy-based preferences of the donor or the donor's family but, instead, by considerations of justice that are built into the administrative rules that dictate how organs should be allocated. Ultimately, the chapter presents the practical reasons for treating cadaveric organs differently than organs from a living donor.