"Informed consensus is the prior condition of freedom for transplantation to be a gift; it should not become an act of coercion or exploitation", said the Pope while receiving in hearing the participants in the International Congress on Organ Donation. The Pope pointed out that "often" the organ transplantation technique is fulfilled "for a gesture of total gratuitousness by the relatives of the patient whose death has been ascertained". Moreover, according to the Pope, "the single vital organs can be taken only from a corpse. But the corpse has also its own dignity, which has to be respected". Since "science, in the last few years, made further progress in ascertaining the death of the patient", according to Benedict XVI, "the achieved results should be approved by the whole scientific community, in order to foster the search for solutions giving certainties to everyone". According to the Pope, in a field like this, actually, "the tiniest suspicion of discretion cannot exist. If certainty is not reached, yet, the caution principle should prevail". Hence, there is the necessity "to improve research and interdisciplinary reflections, in such a way that the very public opinion will face the most evident truth on the anthropological, social, ethical and juridical implications of the transplanting practice". (To be continued)
