We draw on the concept of dignity to consider the ethics of the disposal of amputated limbs. The ethics of the management and disposal of human tissue has been subject to greater scrutiny and discussion in recent years, although the disposal of the limbs often remains absent from such discourses. In light of the recent UK controversy regarding failures in the medical waste disposal and the stockpiling of waste, the appropriate handling of human tissue has been subject to further scrutiny. (...) Although this scandal has evoked concern regarding procurement and supply chain issues, as well as possible health and safety risks from such a ‘stockpile’, the dignity of those patients’ implicated in this controversy has been less widely discussed. Drawing at Foster’s work, we argue that a dignity framework provides a useful lens to frame consideration of the disposal of limbs after amputation. Such a framework may be difficult to reconcile with the logic of business and the ‘biovalue’ of the medical waste, but would we argue afford more patient-centred approaches towards disposal. It may also facilitate better practices to help mitigate future stockpiling incidences. (shrink)

In this paper I problematise quite a simple assertion: that the two major frameworks used in assessing consent to post-mortem organ donation, presumed consent and informed consent, are procedurally similar in that both are ‘default rules.’ Because of their procedural common characteristic, both rules do exclude marginalized groups from consent schemes. Yet this connection is often overlooked. Contract theory on default rules, better than bioethical arguments, can assist in choosing between these two rules. Applying contract theory to the question of (...) post-mortem organ donation suggests that the default rule should be one that goes against the wishes of the stronger party in consent decisions. (shrink)