Should doctors assume that people are happy to donate their organs unless they make the effort to opt out?
That鈥檚 the scenario being considered in the UK, as a means of reducing the widening gap between supply and demand for donated organs. At the moment, a dead person鈥檚 organs cannot be taken unless they registered themselves in life as a donor.
鈥淎round 8000 people in the UK need an organ transplant [each year], but only 3000 transplants are carried out,鈥� said UK health minister Alan Johnson on 20 September, announcing a reappraisal of 鈥減resumed consent鈥� by the government.
Advertisement
The British Medical Association (BMA) welcomes the rethink. 鈥淲e believe that a system of presumed consent, with safeguards, will help to increase the number of donors available,鈥� says Vivienne Nathanson, head of ethics at the BMA.
Last year, a study of 22 countries found that donation rates were 25 to 30 per cent higher in countries with presumed consent, such as Spain, Austria and Belgium (Journal of Health Economics, ).
