Is living donation still justifiable?
Present 'techno-medicine' has brought about clinical results that were simply unthinkable only a few years ago. Just how positive these results really are is beginning to emerge today with growing clarity. Yet, typical of techno-medicine is the way it solves certain problems whilst at the same time creating others. Organ replacement therapy clearly illustrates this modern predicament. Nowadays the death of an organ does not necessarily spell death to the individual. But the miracle of survival thus achieved entails a whole series of complex, controversial, or unsolved repercussions (ethical, logistic, clinical, economic). To find a solution to these would require more progressive thinking by our politicians if they are to grasp the real social importance of technomedicine; and greater humility from our scientists who must be prepared to admit that the widespread application of scientific results hinges entirely on their acceptance by politicians. Such concrete, trusting collaboration between the two orders of politics and science is still utopian. The ethics of living-donor transplantation conform to the rule: results (here moral as well as clinical) following on results (the creation of the renal 'new man' brought about by present techno-medicine).
Bonomini
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Institute of Nephrology, University of Bologna, Italy.
Gozzetti
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G
D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006801:Humans; D016377:Organ Transplantation; D018570:Risk Assessment; D014019:Tissue Donors; D009927:Tissue and Organ Procurement