Author Archives: admin
Jews and Organ Donations: All Take and No Give?
This article highlights the status of organ donation and its misconceptions amongst the Jewish population in the aftermath of the Alissa Flatow case. It provides an overview of Israel’s “all-take no give policy” as a member of the European organ donor network and Israel’s subsequent closeout from the network. Landmark decisions amongst various Jewish groups vis-à-vis organ donation in Israel and America are also outlined.
The right to sell or buy a kidney: are we failing our patients?
The Lancet, Vol 359, March 16, 2002
Eulogy for Louis Washkansky
Whaddaya Have To Do To Get A Kidney Around Here?
Frances Kissling is a visiting scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the former president of Catholics for a Free Choice.
Mortality and Causes of Death
Rav Moshe Shternbuch: “Should I Give My Sister A Kidney?”
Brain Death: Can It Be Resuscitated? Letters
Hastings Center Report 39, no 5 (2009): 4-7
Brain Death: Can It Be Resuscitated?
Full title: Brain Death: Can It Be Resuscitated? March/April 2009 Includes letters to the author from Hastings Center Report 39, no 5 (2009): 4-7, September-October 2009 entitled “And She’s Not Only Merely Dead, She’s Really Mostly Sincerely Dead”
Should organ donors be paid?
The second article featured in this newsletter, “Should Organ Donors Be Paid?” allows members of the University of Chicago’s faculty to weigh in on the debate for organ sales. Business professor, Gary Becker, believes that only the government has enough authority to establish a regulated system to buy and distribute organs. He estimates the cost to be $15,000 for a kidney and $35,000 for a liver, which should not add significantly to the cost of transplants. Law professor, Richard Epstein, believes the payments could change the doctor-patient relationship and attract a riskier group. Transplant surgeon, Dr. Thistlethwaite, opposes any system because it would be exploitative of the poor. Opinions are clearly divided, with Epstein claiming, “ethics demands the US try a market system” and Thistlethwaite countering that “the ethical justification for doing this to people doesn’t exist.” The final voice, Janet Rowley, a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, does not believe the system is likely to be developed soon unless “the list gets so big that it’s politically effective, or if someone who’s a big name dies” waiting for a transplant.