Organ Transplant or Donation
LEGAL BASIS 3 GENERAL PRINCIPLES
- RA no. 7170
- "Organ Donation Law of 1991“
- Approved on Jan 7 1992
DEFINITION
- moving of whole/partial organ to one body to
another for the purpose of replacing the recipient's
damaged/failing organ with a working one from the
donor
- Organ donors go through series of testings like
crossmatching or blood tests
- extracted viable organs are quickly transferred to
special containers / tissue banks
DEFINITION OF TERMS
 Organ Bank Storage Facility - a facility licensed,
accredited or approved under the law for storage of
human bodies or parts thereof
 Decedent - a deceased individual, and includes a still-
born infant or fetus
 Testator - an individual who makes a legacy of all or
part of his body
 Donor - an individual authorized under this act to
donate all or part of the body of a decedent
 Death - the irreversible cessation of circulatory and
respirator functions or the irreversible cessation of all
functions of the entire brains, including the brain
stem.
 Immediate family/kin of decedent -
 Spouse
 Son/daughter of legal age
 Either parent
 Brother/sister of legal age
 Guardian over the person of the decedent at
the time of his death
KINDS OF ORGAN TRANSPLANT
a) Live (Inter Vivos)
- done among the living
- living donor may donate any part/s of his body as
long as the act does not violate the Principle of
Totality (teachings of the Catholic Church)
- organs: corneas, the middle ear, skin, veins, arms,
bones, heart valves, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage,
stem cell, blood, and platelets
b) Dead (Postmortem)
- donations given after the death of the donor
- organs: pancreas, liver, lungs, kidneys, heart,
intestines, penis
- Organ transplant is acceptable in the tenets of the
Catholic Faith as long as they conform to certain
moral/ethical principles
- If transplantation conducted fails to conform to
these principles, such transplant is construed as
immoral
 Importance of informed consent that must
be legitimately given by the donor or by
the one who speaks before him
 The physical and psychological risk
incurred by the donor must be equal to
the good sought for the recipient
 The destruction of the healthy functioning
of the inherent beauty of one's body is
deemed morally wrong even if this delays
the death of another
PRINCIPLE OF INTER VIVOS
DONATION
- upholds the Principle of Totality which requires
that the parts of the whole body are structured or
ordered for the good of that particular body.
Hence whatever mutilations done by the donor to
his body for the benefit of the donee, the body of
the donor must not be seriously impaired or
destroyed. It must rather remain healthy and
beautiful
PRINCIPLE OF POSTMORTEM
DONATION
 The donor must be verifiably and legitimately dead
 Informed consent must be duly administered by
the deceased donor which is legibly verified by a
trustworthy source, or in its absence, the consent
of next of kind shall be honored, provided that the
deceased wouldn't have opposed if he were still
alive
 The remains of the donor must be treated with the
same respect as the donor's dead body does not
stop to be a temple of the Holy spirit
 “Eu” meaning good/well
Euthanasia
“Thanatos” meaning death

FORMS OF EUTHANASIA
a) Voluntary
- person consents/decides to kill himself painlessly
- physician provides the means to carry out the final
action/procedure
b) Involuntary
- person cannot decide for himself to die painlessly
so his significant others decide for him (e.g.
terminally ill patients of long term coma patients
only supported by machines)

WAYS OF DOING EUTHANASIA

1) Passive - avoiding intake of common treatments
based on the knowledge that stopping these
treatments can lead to their death (e.g. cancer patient
no longer takes medications or chemotherapy or "Do
not resuscitate" order after going to cardiac arrest)
2) Non-active - the life support (e.g. respirator) will be
withdrawn from the patient
3) Active - lethal substance is administered to a patient
to kill them (e.g. pavulon, potassium chloride)

CONTROVERSIAL PEOPLE
PHYSICIAN ASSISTED SUICIDE
 Jack Kevorkian (AM)- invented the suicide machine
(1990's) and willfully assisted terminally ill patients
to kills themselves
 Philipe Nitschke (AUS)- invented euthanasia device
and vigorously complained of the legalization of
assisted suicide in Australia
 Jayant Patel (AM)- trained in India and willfully
made himself incompetent so that his patients will
die
 Harold Shipman (ENG)- called the most profilic
serial killer via physician assisted suicide
 Aribert Hein (AUSTRIAN)- charged of killing almost
a million of people during the Nazi (germany)
 Josef Mengele (GER) - angel of death physician
because of killing thousands of people during the
time of Hitler