Routine recovery: an ethical plan for greatly increasing the supply of transplantable organs.

Purpose Of Review: All current organ procurement policies require some form of consent. Many families refuse to permit organ recovery from a recently deceased relative; therefore, the major cost of requiring consent is the loss of some lives that could have been saved through transplantation. Here, we argue for a much more efficient approach to organ procurement from brain dead individuals - routine recovery of all transplantable organs without consent.

Routine recovery of cadaveric organs for transplantation: consistent, fair, and life-saving.

Many families deny organ recovery from recently deceased relatives. As a result, valuable organs and some of the lives they could save are lost. Several plans designed to rectify this tragic situation have been proposed, including organ sales.

The beauty of the gift: the wonder of living organ donation.

In a recent opinion piece, Nancy Scheper-Hughes provides a sweeping indictment of living organ donation, even in cases where the gift is directed to a close family member. She describes the process with caustic powerful phrases such as "sacrificial violence" and a "call to 'self-sacrifice.'" She concludes that living organ donation "should be consigned to a back seat as an exceptional back-up to deceased donation.