Procuring Permission: The Case for Organ Transplant Tax Credits

Jurgen De Wispelaere, Trinity College Dublin
Lindsay Stirton, University of Manchester

Abstract

The conventional wisdom amongst the organ transplant community is roughly constituted by three important beliefs. First, there is a significant deficit in the overall supply of organs for transplant purposes. Second, this deficit would be substantially affected by an increase in the supply of cadaveric organs. Third, the dramatic impact of an increase in cadaveric organs for those waiting on the transplant lists, both in terms of their survival rates as well as their quality of life, makes finding policy mechanisms that effectively boost supply a key moral imperative. The transplant community is in much less agreement, however, about how to proceed achieving this goal. This article offers a radical alternative to the schemes currently in place or under consideration. We suggest policy-makers adopt a scheme with two key components. To begin with, we propose to disconnect the decision of a donor's next-of-kin to agree or veto the harvesting of organs for transplant purposes from the event of the donor's death through an advance commitment device. We have outlined this device and its main advantages in detail in another article, and will only refer to it here in a cursory fashion. In this paper we instead focus on the second component of our scheme, to wit, a financial incentive mechanism for next-of-kin to agree to the harvesting of donor organs.