Time to address the problem of post-mortem procurement of organs for transplantation occurring without proper pre-mortem consent.

Current cadaveric organ transplant systems allow individuals to be classified as donors after death where they registered wishes in favour of this prior to death. However, systems for registering wishes pertaining to donation fall woefully short of securing proper consent. Furthermore, even jurisdictions which technically require consent to be obtained in order to treat an individual as a donor, allow that consent to be given by next of kin after death in circumstances where there is no evidence of the individual having refused prior to death. This article explores these and related issues with current systems from the perspectives of health law norms, ethics and human rights. It concludes that proper pre-mortem consent ought to be a pre-requisite for post-mortem organ transplantation.

International means for protecting humans as ends in medicine.

According to Kant human beings should use their humanity, whether in their own person or the person of any other, 'always at the same time as an end never simply as a means' (1786, p429). This has traditionally been broken down into an imperfect duty of virtue to promote both one's own ends and the ends of others as if they were one's own (the means by which perfection can be achieved) and the more narrow but perfect duty not to treat oneself and others as mere means. This article critically examines how the latter duty is interpreted and enforced in the health field, particularly via general and health specific international human rights instruments.

Contemporaty issues in the regulation of artificial reproduction and embryology in the UK

La Ley “Fertilización humana y embriológica” de 1990 es uno de los vehículos más flexibles y detallados para la regulación en el área de las reproducción artificial y embriológica ésta capacidad de respuesta ha sido recientemente cuestionada por la materialización de dilema no previstos y la respuesta de los actores legales a este dilema que muchas veces ha sido ética y democráticamente deficientes. En ninguna parte esto está mejor demostrado que en este reproche de la autoridad regulatoria y judicial al uso de los diagnósticos genéticos preimplantatorios y de la clonación (AU)

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 was one of the most comprehensive and flexible vehicles for regulation of artificial reproduction and embryology of its area. However, its serviceability has recently been brought into question by both the materialization of unforeseen dilemmas and the response of legal actors to these dilemma´s which has often been ethically and democratically deficient. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the reproach of the regulatory authority and judiciary to the use pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and cloning by cell nuclear replacement (AU)

Contemporary issues in the regulation of artificial reproduction and embryology in the UK.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 was one of the most comprehensive and flexible vehicles for regulation of artificial reproduction and embryology of its area. However, its serviceability has recently been brought into question by both the materialisation of unforeseen dilemmas and the response of legal actors to these dilemma's which has often been ethically and democratically deficient. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the reproach of the regulatory authority and judiciary to the use pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and cloning by cell nuclear replacement.