IS THERE A MORAL DUTY TO DONATE ORGANS? THESIS ON A CONTRAVERSIAL SUBJECT

Abstract

There is an obligation of us as human beings to help other persons who need helpby giving them something from what we possess. But we do not “possess” our organs. The kindof action by which organs are transplanted is not simply the kind of an act of help or solidarity.Since to it belongs the ending of a patient’s life on cause of the doctor’s action the decisive questionis if it belongs to the essence of that kind of action that it is the killing of a human being. Mythesis is that it is not an act of killing. But it is a complex kind of action of a new and genuinecharacter and therefore needs cautious and restrictive ethical consideration. In no case there canbe something like a human duty to give one’s organs to others.