Birch Samuel C M
The University of Notre Dame Australia, 160 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, New South Wales 2010, Australia.
J Med Philos. 2013 Aug;38(4):426-40. doi: 10.1093/jmp/jht021.
Miller, Truog, and Brock have recently argued that the "dead donor rule," the requirement that donors be determined to be dead before vital organs are procured for transplantation, cannot withstand ethical scrutiny. In their view, the dead donor rule is inconsistent with existing life-saving practices of organ transplantation, lacks a cogent ethical rationale, and is not necessary for maintenance of public trust in organ transplantation. In this paper, the second of these claims will be evaluated. (The first and third are not addressed.) The claim that the dead donor rule lacks a cogent ethical rationale will be shown to be an expression of the contemporary rejection of the moral significance of the traditional distinction between killing and allowing to die. The moral significance of this traditional distinction, and the associated norm that doctors should not kill their patients, will be defended, and this critique of it shown to be unsuccessful.
米勒、特鲁格和布罗克最近认为，“死亡供体规则”，即在获取重要器官用于移植之前，捐赠者必须被判定死亡的要求，经不起伦理审查。在他们看来，死亡供体规则与器官移植现有的挽救生命的做法不一致，缺乏令人信服的伦理依据，并且对于维持公众对器官移植的信任并非必要。在本文中，将对这些主张中的第二条进行评估。（第一条和第三条主张不予讨论。）认为死亡供体规则缺乏令人信服的伦理依据这一主张，将被证明是当代对传统的杀人与听任死亡之间区别的道德意义予以拒斥的一种表现。这种传统区别的道德意义，以及与之相关的医生不应杀害其患者的规范，将得到辩护，并且对其的这种批评将被证明是不成功的。
