Abstract
By the end of 2018 more than 450 people were on the waiting list to receive an organ in Norway. This is an increase by almost 100 percent from 2009, where 268 were on the waiting list. While the public attitude towards donating organs seems to be more positive than ever, there is still shortage of organs that can be successfully transplanted to people who need them for treatment.
Some suggest that the lack of donor organs could be solved by using a donation practice called controlled Donation after Cardiac Death (cDCD). Recently the practice of controlled donation after circulatory death (cDCD) was stopped at Norwegian hospitals. This was due to the fact, that doctors were not in agreement about when someone should be declared dead following from cessation of cardiorespiratory function. The debate on cDCD is already happening in Norway, and while a recent report from Folke Helse Instituttet concluded that cDCD where not ethical or juridical problematic in Norway, some still fear that public opinion would be that doctors end lives to harvest organs in order to help patients in need, and that this could cause harm to the organ donation practice in general. Further, questions of how to decide who is eligible for cDCD are left for health professionals discuss, leaving a new dispute smoldering.
In this project I seek to investigate how the dead donor rule (DDR) and thereby the limit between life and death is affected by cDCD of hearth and lungs. Further, I will investigate the ethical, biological and political consequences of introducing cDCD in Norway, and establish criteria that ought to be observed regarding donation of the heart.
Contact information
Supervisors
Professor Marius Timmann Mjaaland (main supervisor)
Professor Werner Jeanrond (co-supervisor)
Financing
Doctoral fellow at the Faculty of Theology.