Giordano Simona
Institute of Medicine, Law and Bioethics, School of Law, University of Manchester, Williamson Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
J Med Ethics. 2005 Aug;31(8):470-5. doi: 10.1136/jme.2004.009944.
The ethics of post-mortem organ retention and use is widely debated in bioethics and law. However, the fundamental ethical issues have often been inadequately treated. According to one argument, dead bodies are no longer "persons". Given the great benefits dead bodies offer to human kind, they should be automatically treated as public property: when the person dies, the body becomes a public thing (a res publica, a republic). This paper articulates the ethical issues involved in organ and tissue retention and use, both in the case in which the deceased's wishes are known and in the case in which the wishes are not known. It contends that a dead body is not a republic. The state should maximise availability of organs and tissues by inviting or requiring citizens to make an informed and responsible choice on the matter.
死后器官留存与使用的伦理问题在生物伦理学和法律领域引发了广泛讨论。然而，一些基本的伦理问题往往未得到充分探讨。有一种观点认为，尸体不再是“人”。鉴于尸体能为人类带来巨大益处，它们应被自动视为公共财产：人死后，尸体就成为了公共物品（公物，公有物）。本文阐述了在已知死者意愿和未知死者意愿这两种情况下，器官和组织留存与使用所涉及的伦理问题。文章认为，尸体并非公有物。国家应通过引导或要求公民在该问题上做出明智且负责的选择，来最大化器官和组织的可获取性。
