New ethical and legal issues in samaritan and cross-over transplantations

Abstract

One of the tragedies of modern medicine is that physicians now have the capability to save lives and prevent suffering but sometimes they are lacking in this capability. Organ, namely kidney, transplantation is one of this medical areas. But living donors are overcoming the problem. Samaritan and cross-over transplantations, as parts of nonrelated living donations, are a very promising approach to enhance living donation and to open a new era weaving the future. Samaritan donors are people who want to give an organ blindly to everyone regardless of sex, age, race and social status. But this donation creates some incoming ethic problems. A failed kidney transplantation from father to his son and a commercialized organ transfer are reported. Samaritan italian law and its bioethical implications are the most dramatic solidaristic intervention to prolong life as a cultural challenge of 21th century. (Bioethics)