Replacement Parts

The supply of human organs in the United States continues to lag behind demand. By any objective standard the public policy of "encouraged volunteerism," established with the adoption of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act in 1968, has failed. How should the United States and the health care community address this ongoing scarcity? What strategies would be both morally acceptable and effective? Noted bioethicist Arthur Caplan and his coeditors have brought together seminal essays and articles from the most significant literature in the fields of medicine, policy, philosophy and religion to help analyze and assess these questions. Caplan's introductory essay explains why present policies are inadequate, and succeeding sections of the book address the following issues: the determination of death and the "dead donor rule"; the morally divisive case of anencephalic infants as organ donors; the sale of cadaveric or live organs; strategies for increasing the number of available organs, including the market; and how some organ seekers, such as Apple's Steve Jobs, "game the system" by creating advantageous circumstances for organ donation.