Donor Siblings may Promote Personal and Family Restoration

“My Sister’s Keeper,” a recent movie about donor siblings who donate an organ or some other valuable biological resource to rescue a brother or sister, has brought to light an important conflict between personal liberty and family altruism. Many families are faced with such decisions - they have one sick child and at least one healthy child who can rescue the family by becoming a donor for their sibling.

Children have been serving as donors since the first year of successful organ donation, when the first successful kidney transplant from a living donor to another living person was performed between identical twins. Precisely because siblings are particularly well suited to be living donors for each other, they share a unique ability to help each other maintain life in life-threatening circumstances. Yet the legal conflict over personal liberty involved in “requiring” a sibling toward such altruism is important, and becomes more critical when families add a child to save the life of another family member.

Sibling Organ Donation: Siblings Sharing a Special Bond, by Jessica Williams (Regent Law 2011) considers these issues, and examines the case law surrounding the phenomenon of donor siblings. Williams concludes that “courts are doing a good job of looking out for the best interest of the donor child and ensuring that families are kept intact. The hospitals and doctors have raised an ethical standard that has seemed to protect children while still allowing the parents the right to make major decisions concerning their child. Doctors, parents and both the sick child and the donor child working together to keep the family strong seems to be the best idea for keeping sibling organ donation ethical, and a useful tool for families.”

Read the entire article here.