When Doctors Kill Patients: Vital Organ Transplants

Abstract

This paper attempts to discern exactly what is happening in some medical situations involving patients who are, in different ways, near death. In order to arrive at a correct moral evaluation of these practices, it is necessary to begin with a careful analysis of exactly what is happening, and then proceed to moral evaluation. This paper argues that declarations of death in many vital organ transplants are unjustified. Thus, probably there are killings occurring in these cases. However, there is no reason to think that these killings are morally unacceptable.