Article Text
Feature article
Ethics, organ donation and tax: a proposal
Abstract
Five arguments are presented in favour of the proposal that people who opt in as organ donors should receive a tax break. These arguments appeal to welfare, autonomy, fairness, distributive justice and self-ownership, respectively. Eight worries about the proposal are considered in this paper. These objections focus upon no-effect and counter-productiveness, the Titmuss concern about social meaning, exploitation of the poor, commodification, inequality and unequal status, the notion that there are better alternatives, unacceptable expense, and concerns about the veto of relatives. The paper argues that none of the objections to the proposal is very telling.
- Allocation of healthcare resources
- donation/procurement of organs/tissues
- ethics
- financial incentives
- medical ethics
- organ donation
- organ shortage
- philosophical ethics
- tax
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Linked Articles
- Commentaries
- Commentaries
- Commentaries
- The concise argument
Other content recommended for you
- Advance commitment: an alternative approach to the family veto problem in organ procurement
- Tax needn't be taxing, but in the case of organ donation it might be
- Free riding and organ donation
- Titmuss revisited: from tax credits to markets
- Renal transplantation
- A legal market in organs: the problem of exploitation
- The potential for non-heart beating organ donation within a paediatric intensive care unit
- Highlights from this issue
- DONORS (Donation Network to Optimise Organ Recovery Study): Study protocol to evaluate the implementation of an evidence-based checklist for brain-dead potential organ donor management in intensive care units, a cluster randomised trial
- Time to move to presumed consent for organ donation