IS IT morally right to restart a dead person鈥檚 heart purely so it can be donated for transplant? This was the question posed this week by the British Medical Association in a seeking new sources of organs to redress a shortfall in the UK. Some 500 to 1000 British people die each year waiting for a transplant.
The practice of restarting hearts in people who have just died of heart failure to boost donation rates was first demonstrated in the US in 2008.
The logic is that keeping the heart ticking helps preserve it for longer. But the report cautions that the paradox of restarting the heart of someone who has just died of heart failure could confuse the public and damage confidence in donation.
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It concludes that the best option to increase organ donation rates in the UK would be to make donation a default position from which people must 鈥�opt out鈥� 鈥� at present the opposite is the case.