Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
However, the term 'donor' in common language implies that the cells have
been freely given without payment. Donation has always been considered
as the etablishment of a gift relationship, as an expression of social virtues
such as altruism and citizenship and as a way to reinforce the social contract
between the individual and society (Titmuss, 1997). This perception is
philosophically based on the Kantian view that there is an oppositon between
dignity and price, or between absolute and relative value. For Kant, and in
civil law, the human body and its parts are the locus of absolute value and
dignity. commercialising the body and its parts is assigning a market value
to it and consequently destroying its dignity. countries applying common
law come to a similar prohibition of the sale of body parts, but use different
arguments. in common law one has no property rights in and cannot exert
ownership over his/her body, or over its parts. consequently body parts that
have been donated are considered as '
res nullius'
or abandoned material
(Dickenson, 2007). These arguments both from common and civil law lie at
the basis of the current ubiquitous prohibition on the sale of bodily material
in europe (The european Parliament and council, 2004).
Yet despite current legislation and several court rulings, we are faced with
the fact that scientific advances have rendered the body into an 'open source
of free biological material for commercial use' and whose 'products' can be
transacted and sold in a global economy that is governed by the laws and
customs of the neoliberal economies (andrews and nelkin, 2001; Waldby
and mitchell, 2006). There is a felt discrepancy between the prohibition on
selling one's own cells, based on a high morality of altruism and citizenship
on the one hand and the incorporation of these cells, once they have been
altruistically donated, in a system that adheres to rather different morals. a
new and refined ethical evaluation is necessary concerning the meaning and
implications of the concepts of property, of selling and donating, of commodity
and gift in relation to cells and of the repercussions these concepts have for
the development of tissue engineering (Dickenson, 2007).
Informed consent in cell exchanges
in the absence of a clear and useful conceptual framework of bodily material
as a gift and/or commodity, the only element that orders the relationships
between the two parties in the cell exchange is the informed consent of the
donor that is obtained before the prelevation of these cells (Dickenson, 2007).
The informed consent procedure must inform the donor of the procedure
and the risks of the intervention. Whenever the procurement of the cells is
accompanied by the collection of personal data of the donor, it is evident
that this data collection is equally addressed and that donors also consent to
the collection and management of the data (The european Parliament and
council, 2004).
