Customer Reviews

Ethics of Organ Transplants (Contemporary Issues)

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I have gone through a very emotional period in which twice, I thought I was going to be a living organ donor. Once it was to have been a kidney and the other time a lobe of my liver. Each time, I was unable to undergo the surgery. My liver's blood vessels are in the way, thus the surgeon cannot safely operate without risking severing an artery. Going through the process of preparing for surgery, even though ultimately the surgery never took place, has given me an interest in the topic of organ transplants and the ethical issues surrounding them. This book has articles on the ethics of living transplants as well as many other topics such as the allocation of scarce organs, using fetal tissue, defining "brain death," etc. Some articles are several years old so the technology discussed may be a little dated but the ethical issues remain. Some articles are from medical journals and are rather technical from a lay person's standpoint. Nonetheless, most articles are interesting and when I showed this book to my would be surgeon for the liver transplant, he immediately ordered a copy for himself.

This collection of essays on issues related to organ transplantation is both thought-provoking and timely, as our society grapples with critical problems such as the allocation of donor organs, the use of animal organs, etc. Caplan and Coelho have done a superb job of editing this anthology.