Organ shortage: A system of "presumed consent" making the organs of the deceased public property should be introduced to deal with an acute shortage of transplant organs, according to a Manchester-based professor.
In a speech to be delivered at the Irish Council for Bioethic's 2005 annual lecture in Dublin tomorrow, Prof John Harris, University of Manchester, will suggest rules governing organ donation should be changed from requiring consent to a model in which "refusal to participate requires justification".
While Prof Harris admits many people will have strong objections to their bodies being tampered with after death, he is "content to observe that it is far from clear that people are entitled to conscientiously object to practices that will save innocent lives".
The crucial issue is not whether people might prefer not to have their organs taken after their death but "whether using the organs of the dead to save the lives of the living is the right thing to do".
The context for Prof Harris's approach is a worldwide shortage of donor organs, which he describes as "an acute emergency". Last month the Irish Transplant Society warned the Republic faces a growing shortage of organs for transplantation despite having the third highest rate of organ donation in the world.
The lecture takes place in the O'Flanagan Lecture Theatre, Royal College of Surgeons, St Stephen's Green tomorrow at 7pm. Admission is free but people must apply for tickets from the Irish Council for Bioethics, via www.bioethics.ie. Some tickets are available at tel: 01 6380920.
