Abstract

PIP: Organ transplants have been one of the greatest advances in medicine. However, organs from living relatives or cadavers are in short supply, and many people die awaiting a donor organ. Increasing the donor pool by using organs from aborted fetuses has been proposed to increase the supply. In addition, there are benefits of using fetal tissue including its particular usefulness in children, the fact that it is not readily rejected, and its potential for growth. Guidelines for fetal research were issued in 1975, but a research moratorium was imposed in 1988 to allow study of ethical and legal issues. While the federal government delays in lifting the ban, several states have written laws governing experimentation with fetuses. Ethical arguments against using fetal tissue for organ transplant include a concern that this would create a branch of biomedicine which depends on the continuation of induced abortions. This could lead to neglect of research for other therapies. The timing and type of abortion should continue to benefit the mother, rather than the organ recipient. Ethicists debate whether or not use of aborted tissue implies complicity in the abortion process beyond that which exists for all members of a society which permits abortion. They also wonder whether knowing that some good could come of an abortion would influence a woman's decision to have one. Proposals to keep the use of fetal tissue ethical include banning the commercial use of sale of tissues, forbidding designation of the tissue recipient (to prevent harvesting fetal tissue for a relative), separating abortion counseling and management from harvesting of the tissue, and obtaining informed consent (perhaps from a proxy surrogate rather than from the mother) for the use of fetal tissue. When the medical and ethical communities have reached some consensus on these issues, crafted safeguards, and precluded conflicts of interest, then restrictions on government funding should be lifted. Whereas it would always be preferable to use tissue from spontaneous abortions or ectopic pregnancies, these sources are medically problematic. When consensus is reached, it should include a way in which medical workers can legitimately refuse to participate in the procedure on personal ethical grounds.