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Organ Transplantation, Ethical Issues in

Organ transplantation involves the removal of a solid organ (or a constituent portion of the organ, as in the case of some liver transplants) from one person (the donor) and surgically implanting the organ into another person (the recipient). As one of the most dramatic feats of contemporary medicine, it has raised a number of ethical issues. These issues concern harm to the donor, determination of death, organ allocation, the nature of consent, and the moral acceptability of a market in organs.

Subjects of Organ Transplantation

There are two classes of organ donors. The first are living donors who donate, for example, a kidney or a lobe of the liver. Originally, a donor was a sibling, ideally a twin, of the organ recipient, thus lessening the risk ...

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