Penn Bioethics Seminar Series (PBS): "Trading Time for Tissue: The Morality of Organ Donation Programs in Prison Systems" with Paul Tubig, PhD

Trading Time for Tissue: The Morality of Organ Donation Programs in Prison Systems
 

Paul Tubig, PhD

Assistant Professor of Philosophy 
Georgia Southern University
 

The organ shortage crisis is not a new problem, but its persistence still leads to thousands of deaths annually as well as endangering many more. More than 100,000 people in the U.S. are awaiting an organ for transplant, and 17 people die each day on the waiting list. The transplant gap -- that is, the shortfall between demand for, and supply of, tissue for transplantation -- has led to various proposals to procure more organs from human donors. One recent proposal is to turn the incarcerated class as an untapped source of potential organ donors. Recently, Massachusetts lawmakers proposed a bill to allow incarcerated people to donate organs or bone marrow in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. The aim of this talk is to discuss the range of ethical issues that arise from such programs, including questions of informed consent in coercive settings, exploitation, and the commodification of incarcerated bodies.

Paul Tubig is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia Southern University. 
Paul writes, teaches, and speaks widely about the relationship between health and justice, and the ethics of transformative technologies, including body-modification technologies, in contexts of injustice. 

Streaming via Zoom.