May I Give My Heart Away? On the Permissibility of Living Vital Organ Donation

The dead donor rule (DDR) regulates current practice for vital organ donation, which means that organs may only be retrieved from people who are already dead (or brain dead). However, several authors criticize the DDR and argue that we should instead adopt a rule that allows us to retrieve vital organs before people are dead. They call this proposal organ donation euthanasia (ODE). While I am sympathetic to this proposal I do not think it goes far enough. In this paper, I show that the key reasons put forward in favor of permitting ODE actually justify a more far-reaching suggestion for regulation, permitting people to become living vital organ donors even when they are not about to die for other reasons. Further, I argue that only accepting imminently dying people as eligible donors for living vital organ donation would be objectionably paternalistic.