Abstract

In recent years, the demand for organ and human tissue transplants has increased, but the number of donors is still insufficient. Different legislative reforms have been proposed to increase the number of donors, but this has not necessarily caused a significant increase [1]. Among the different legal provisions, Presumed Consent (opt-out) has stood out as a legal mechanism for reducing the gap between demand and availability of human organs. The experience of Spain shows that the impact of this law together with other amendments led years later to an important increase of donors, but this did not happen in other countries in the area. Therefore, there may not be a direct relation between the introduction of the presumed consent law and increased donor rate [2]. From the viewpoint of some bioethicists, it is stated that presumed consent violates the spirit of voluntary charity and individual autonomy, and this would contradict the spirit of informed consent and would be ethically unjustified [3]. Many people would still not be aware of the law and therefore presumed consent may be equivalent to organ conscription.