Should we expect more people to donate organs, eggs and sperm and, if so, how far can we ethically go in encouraging them to donate? The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the UK’s leading bioethics thinktank, has launched a three-month public consultation about donation of organs, sperm, eggs and other human material for medical treatment and research. A report will be published towards the end of 2011.

Professor Dame Marilyn Strathern, the chair of the inquiry, said: “We could try to increase the number of organ donors by providing stronger incentives, such as cash, paying funeral costs or priority for an organ in future, but would this be ethical? Women can already get free IVF treatment from private clinics to encourage them to donate eggs, and healthy volunteers may be paid significant sums of money to ‘donate’ their bodies to test new medicines for the first time in humans. We want to explore why the rules are different for different kinds of donation.”

Paying people, beyond covering expenses, to donate most kinds of organs and tissue for use in medical treatment is currently illegal in the UK. However, some people are travelling abroad to get organ transplants and fertility treatment in countries where this is more widely available, either because of different laws or because of illegal markets. The extent of ‘transplant tourism’ is not fully known.

“Perhaps we should accept that we can only do so much to meet the ever increasing demand,” said Professor Strathern. “We also need to think about the morality of pressing people to donate their bodily material. Offering payment or other incentives may encourage people to take risks or go against their beliefs in a way they would not have otherwise done.”

The current system relies upon altruistic donation. But the demand for organ donors has increased in recent years, due to an ageing population and improvements in medicine. Around 8000 people are waiting for an organ transplant in the UK, and there is currently a demand for roughly 1200 more egg donors and 500 more sperm donors, says the Nuffield Council.  Scientists also need people to donate human tissue for research.

“We ourselves or one of our relatives may one day need donated organs or tissue, and most of us are likely at some point to use NHS medicines that have been tested on healthy volunteers or human tissue. Given this, perhaps donating parts of our bodies should been seen as a moral obligation for all of us,” said Professor Strathern. ~ Nuffield press release, Apr 20