Replacement Parts

The ethics of organ transplantation has been a core topic ever since the emergence of modern bioethics in the late 1960s. This expertly edited anthology provides a comprehensive examination of the complexities of the issue. It will be a key text for beginners as well as advanced students of the field. -- Jonathan Moreno, David and Lyn Silfen University Professor, University of Pennsylvania Replacement Parts will serve as the volume of record on the ethics of organ transplantation for years to come. The editors have carefully woven together the best contributions in a way that makes the book highly valuable and accessible to students, instructors, researchers, and policymakers. -- Dominic Sisti, Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics, University of Pennsylvania

Despite mass appeals and revolutionary changes in medicine, demand for human organs outstrips supply in the United States. This book offers a collection of writings from medicine, philosophy, economics, and religion that address the ethical challenges raised by organ transplantation.In Replacement Parts, internationally recognized bioethicist Arthur L. Caplan and coeditors James J. McCartney and Daniel P. Reid assemble seminal writings from medicine, philosophy, economics, and religion that address the ethical challenges raised by organ transplantation. Caplan's new lead essay explains the shortfalls of present policies. From there, book sections take an interdisciplinary approach to fundamental issues like the determination of death and the dead donor rule; the divisive case of using anencephalic infants as organ donors; the sale of cadaveric or live organs; possible strategies for increasing the number of available organs, including market solutions and the idea of presumed consent; and questions surrounding transplant tourism and "gaming the system" by using the media to gain access to organs. Timely and balanced, Replacement Parts is a first-of-its-kind collection aimed at surgeons, physicians, nurses, and other professionals involved in this essential lifesaving activity that is often fraught with ethical controversy.