A Study Of Informed Consent Legislation On Human Organ Transplantation

The informed consent rights of organ donors and recipients represent the personalautonomy in area of human organ transplant. Informed consent was formed based onthe profound medical ethics. The bioethicists summarize the informed consent asself-action under personal autonomy, emphasizing that the target of informedconsent is to respect human autonomy. Nuremberg Code came in in1947and pushedinformed consent to the core position of medical ethics. WHO Declaration of Lisbonon Patients’ Right in1981made further propels for which the autonomy is the legalright of patients. At present, national legislation in organ transplantation and WHOGuidelines on Transplantation of Human Cells, Tissue and Organs all stipulate thatthe organ donor and recipient both have the informed consent right. Our Regulationon Human Organ Transplantation stipulates that organ transplantation should followthe principle of voluntary and gratis, which is neither suitable for organ recipient norequal to informed consent. In consideration of that the informed consent is theprevious condition of starting human organ acquisition and transplantation, thesystematically research and proceeding of the informed consent rights of human organdonors and recipients has important value in theories and application to complete thedomestic laws of human organ transplantation and the informed consent right.From the perspective of informed consent in the field of human organtransplant, this paper firstly researches on the similarities and differences of theexercise of the right of informed consent between donors of living organ, donors ofcorpus organ and the recipients of these organs. Secondly, the paper makes asystematical study on the right of informed consent of those recipients. The paperovercomes the disadvantage that the similar research usually only focuses on the rightof the donors and ignores the right of recipients. At the end of this paper, the writer ofthis paper provides several suggestions on perfect legislation of organ transplantincluding but not limited to, making the recipients’ right of informed consentexplicitly stipulated in relevant legislation, making opt-out as the mode for citizensto donate organs, improving the donation rates of organs, expanding the range of thedonors of living organ, permitting cross transplant and Specifying the behaviors ofmedical institution and personnel which violates the informed consent rights of organ donors and recipients. Finally, as the competent authority in charge of human organtransplant, the National Health and Family Planning Commission shall draft a modelof informed consent form for human organ transplant.