Review of Using the bodies of the dead: Legal, ethical and organisational dimensions of organ transplantation

Summary, in English

Reviews the book, Using the Bodies of the Dead: Legal, Ethical and Organisational Dimensions of Organ Transplantation by Nora Machado (1998). Machado's book is important for impressing this fact on the reader. Machado describes the strains that arise when an individual is reduced from being someone's next of kin, the focus of a private and above all family-oriented situation, to being a body, and thus the object of health care policies and legislation. Many borders are crossed in this process, not only the physiological, but also the cultural, legal and ethical. The alchemical translation from dead body to collection of living organs occurs. then, within the organ transplantation system. Machado shows that with new technology and the need for organs comes an intermediate position: the living dead. The duality inherent in the system provides a fertile soil for horror stories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

• Author: Ann-Mari Sellerberg
• Department/s: Sociology
• Publishing year: 2000-01
• Language: English
• Pages: 90-92
• Publication/Series: Acta Sociologica
• Volume: 43
• Issue: 1
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000169930004300111
• Document type: Review
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Topic: Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
• Keywords: organ transplantation; health care policies; legislation; ethics; Bioethics; Organ Transplantation; Health Care Services; Legislative Processes
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 0001-6993