At Death Our Bodies Should Not Be Considered Public Property

Public Property

Property owned by the government or one of its agencies, divisions, or entities. Commonly a reference to parks, playgrounds, streets, sidewalks, schools, libraries and other property regularly used by the general public.

The Human Tissue Act 2004

The current law regarding the use of any tissue or organ is the Human Tissue Act 2004. This has replaced the Human Tissue Act 1961, the Anatomy Act 1984 and the Human Organ Transplants Act 1989.

This Act makes consent the fundamental principle underpinning the lawful storage and use of body parts, organs and tissue from the living or deceased for specified health-related purposes and public display. It lists the purposes for which consent is required. The Human Tissue Act is based upon consent in England, Wales and Northern Island. In Scotland the Human Tissue Act has a stronger emphasis on authorisation than on consent.

Main point of the Human Tissue Act 2004

* The Act controls the removal, storage and use of human tissue. This is defined as material from a human body and consists/includes, human cells.

* The Act creates a new offence of DNA `theft'. If it is taken from living human tissue for DNA analysis it must be with the consent from whom the tissue came.

* The Act makes it lawful to preserve the organs of a deceased person for use in transplantation while steps are taken to determine the wishes of the deceased, or, in the absence of their known wishes, obtaining consent from someone in an appropriate relationship.

* The Act gives specified museums in England discretionary power for them to hand over human remains of person/persons who died less than 1000 years ago.

Offences under the Human Tissue Act

Offences that existed in the Anatomy Act 1984 and the Human Organ Transplantation Act 1989 have been carried forward into the Human Tissue Act 2004 and are all are enforceable in 2006. Penalties range from a fine to up to three years' imprisonment.

* A licence is required from the Human Tissue Authority to carry out such licensable activities.

* The removing, storing or using human tissue for Scheduled Purposes without appropriate consent, including donated tissue.

* Trafficking in human tissue for transplantation purposes.

* Having human tissue, with the intention of its DNA being analysed without the consent of the person from whom the tissue came or of those close to the

deceased. (Medical diagnosis and treatment, criminal investigations are

excluded.)

Slide 2 Alder Hey Scandal

Between 1988 and 1996 organs were stripped from the dead bodies of babies and children without CONSENT.

In total 2,080 hearts, more than 800 organs from children and 400 foetuses where taken and kept at Alder Hey children's hospital.

In 1 case thymus glands were given to a pharmaceutical company for research purposes and in return a cash reward was received.

1 of the most disturbing discoveries from this case was the fact that during the 1960's the severed head of an 11 year old boy was taken and stored in a glass jar.

This case involves many ethical issues:

* The organs were taken without the CONSENT of the families involved

* There was a lack of respect for the bodies of the dead children and the families involved

* Parents had to go through multiple burials when the organs and tissues from their children were returned, once again putting them through the emotional stress and pain that they had been trying to get over

* This affected many people's religious views. For example one parented quoted " I believed that my child had had a Christian burial" when in fact she had buried an empty shell

The consequences to this case included the dismissal and conviction of certain practitioners involved but ultimately focused on the Human tissue Act disallowing doctors from making the decision to take organs themselves.

The initial Human Tissue Act (1961) has now been replaced by the (2004) Act.

Slide 3 Importance of the body

What makes an individual a person is widely debated in philosophy.

* Do people actually cease to exist once their mental function is lost?

The concept that the deceased is no longer a person in the relevant sense stems from the metaphysical conception of the human being, composed of mind on one hand and body on the other. Thinking about the mind and body as conceptually distinguishable functions inevitably results in an irresolvable logical problem. People are right to consider their body as part of themselves.

* Funeral Rituals - knowledge of how the body will be handled after death

Our society on the whole considers it important for individuals to predetermine for themselves how their remains should be handled after death. For example if you want your whole body cremated or buried without any organs or tissues removed then your wishes should be respected. Also funeral rituals are an essential part of the psychological resolution of a loved person's death. Interfering with such rituals and going against the wishes of the dead can be interfering with the way in which people articulate their loss. They may find it extremely distressing and it may have a profound impact upon the psychological welfare of the survivors - essentially you could be destroying someone's life even if saving someone else's.

* Religiously based objection is complex

Are we tampering with Gods creations and altering what we were predetermined to do? Religiously based objection is complex. Most religions have limited objections in the sense of using organs/tissue transplants for life saving purposes; however some groups provide considerable resistance for different reasons.

Fundamentalist Protestantism - Affirms a bodily resurrection - vivid hope of the resurrection in bodily form and source of solace for those who have been separated from loved