Abstract
As rational adults, we are free to elect what is (or is not) done to our bodies. However, this strong freedom does not extend to the borders of life. Control over the uses of our biological material is constrained and uncertain at law. Our article examines the legal condition of embryos and organs: how law conceptualises them and regulates their uses.
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Notes
This paper establishes the legal conceptual foundations of an interdisciplinary inquiry into the regulation of consent to embryo and organ donation being conducted with Sheryl de Lacey, Wendy Richards, and Annette Braunack-Mayer, with the support of a grant from the Australian Research Council.
There has been an ongoing process of public review of the use of embryos and access to assisted reproductive treatment (ART) and organ donation.
We are not alone in identifying this link. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, for example, recently issued a press release entitled “Can we ethically increase organ, egg and sperm donation?” that, in the process of announcing an enquiry, explained: “The Council is considering all kinds of donation, both in life and after death, including whole organs, blood, skin, corneas, bone, sperm, eggs and embryos, as well as clinical trials that test the safety of new medicines for the first time in humans” (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2010, ¶9).
Although a beneficiary of a will can be listed ante-natum, rights do not crystallise until birth.
Transplantation and Anatomy Act 1978 (ACT), s 27; Human Tissue Act 1983 (NSW), s 23; Transplantation and Anatomy Act 1979 (NT), s18; Transplantation and Anatomy Act 1979 (Qld), s 22; Transplantation and Anatomy Act 1983 (SA), s 21; Human Tissue Act 1985 (Tas), s 23; Human Tissue Act 1982 (Vic), s 26; Human Tissue and Transplant Act 1982 (WA), s 22.
This interdisciplinary study, with Sheryl de Lacey, Wendy Rogers, and Annette Braunack-Mayer, is about the degree of alignment between community understandings of these entities and their actual regulation.
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Naffine, N., Richards, B. Regulating Consent to Organ and Embryo Donation. Bioethical Inquiry 9, 49–55 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-011-9348-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-011-9348-5