Abstract Clear and careful thinking is an indispensable aid in the pursuit of answers to difficult ethical question faced by clinicians, patients, families. In this issue The Journal Medicine Philosophy devoted issues clinical ethics, authors engage enterprise reflecting on morally good medical decision making, conscientious objection, presumed consent organ donation, permissibility surrogate f...

BACKGROUND Over the past three decades, public attitudes to organ donation have been a subject of numerous studies focusing on donor motivation. Here, we present a fresh approach. We suggest focusing on public acceptability instead of motivation. The point is to understand public attitudes well enough to avoid risking public support for organ transplantation. We conducted the study in Denmark b...

March-April 2004 Should the state permit the extraction of sperm from the cadaver of a recently deceased man at the request of his widow or ex-partner, allowing her to conceive his genetic offspring after his death? Over the past five years, several requests for the posthumous extraction and use of sperm have been heard in Israeli courts, and in October 2003, following a series of discussions h...

Human body material removed post mortem is a particularly valuable resource for research. Considering the efforts that are currently being made to study the biochemical processes and possible genetic causes that underlie cancer and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, it is likely that this type of research will continue to gain in importance. However, post mortem procurement of human...

Some of the most important advances in medicine over the last 30 years have been in the field of organ transplantation. Huge efforts and vast resources are being invested to improve surgical methods and histocompatibility examinations and to combat rejection of the implants. As a result, the success rate of trans-plantations – represented by lives saved and improved quality of life after the pr...

Organ donation and transplant rates vary widely across the globe, with the gap between requirements and available organs continuing to be a significant problem in many countries. This ongoing shortage has driven the creation of numerous initiatives to educate the public of the need for organ donation and to attempt to dispel urban and religious concerns over the ethics and appropriateness of or...

This issue of the journal includes papers across both analytical and empirical schools within bioethics. In his feature article, ‘The kindest cut? Surgical castration, sex offenders and coercive offers’, John McMillan asks whether surgical castration can be ethically provided as medical treatment for sex offenders (see page 583, Editor’s choice). While surgical castration has previously been av...