This paper asks whether the Philippines should focus onways of dealing with end-stage renal disease by getting moretransplantable kidneys from the dead. Would it be more ethicalto put the burden to donate on the dead (who have already losttheir chance to consent) than on the living (who can consent)?Given the risks involved in undergoing nephrectomy and the lackof benefi...

In a World Report about the pros and cons of a regulated market for organ donation in the USA (Oct 17, p 1315), Priya Shetty explores other solutions for tackling organ shortage. When analysing the situation in Europe, she states that “Spain, which introduced presumed consent in 1990, has seen donations double...” The real fact is that Spain has not changed its transplantation law since 1979. O...

The debate over whether germ-line genetic engineering is justified on the basis of the consent or presumed consent of future generations is mired in philosophical confusion. Because of this, the principle of informed consent fails to provide a reason to restrict germ-line genetic engineering. Most recent bioethicists ground the consent requirement on individual autonomy. While conceptually cohe...