title: [The meaning and essence of donation. How much of "ourselves" do we give when we donate our organs?].
abstract: Our study endeavors to show, in the form of an empirical study, that the inadequate number of donations of human body parts in France can be explained by a fear of loss, in both an ontological and anthropological sense: to give is to renounce, to lose, to deprive oneself. This line of argument seeks, on one hand, to highlight how the common understanding of donation implicitly fuels this behaviour, and, on the other hand, to propose a relationship of oneself to oneself followed by oneself to others through various representations of the possession of one's body. Thus, a social practice with a medical purpose (collecting blood, removing an organ) reads as, firstly, a very old metaphysical question, namely my relationship with my body, secondly, a legal ethics question, that of the commitment of men to one another, established an maintained not only by will and rational deliberation but also by the components of each person's body.
authors.affiliation: Haut Conseil de la santé publique, 8 rue Ampère, 38300 Bourgoin Jallieu, France. sergeboarini@yahoo.fr
authors.forename: Serge
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Boarini
mesh_terms: D001782:Blood Donors / Q000941:ethics; D006801:Humans; D019520:Living Donors; D008678:Metaphysics; D011057:Politics; D012649:Self Concept; D009927:Tissue and Organ Procurement / Q000941:ethics*