Minor's consent : A study into organ donation from living minors

Abstract

The primary objective of this article is to study the criteria of donation consent of organ transplant from living minors which includes the conditions and methods of minors’ consent, the roles of parents to consent for minors, and the responsibility of a relevant organization to consider minors’ consent for organ transplant donation. This article shall cover the comparative study of foreign laws in order to reflect an appropriate application of the laws to the Thai context.

The result of the study has illustrated that only professional ethical principles shall authorize surgeons to perform surgery to remove the organ from the living minor bodies for the purpose of the medical donation.  It would be illegal since the permission for the surgery does not come from a decision autonomy due to the fact that minors are unable to make their decisions as an adult in case of complicated circumstances. Nonetheless, it is unclear whether or not a charge of assault and battery shall be exempted from the penalty. If the principle of organ transplant donation of living minors is violated, a consequence would lay upon disciplinary penalties for medical professionals, criminal liabilities, and civil liabilities from general provisions as a punishment which might not be appropriate for the violation. In conclusion, this article aims to propose the inclusion of organ transplant donation consent criteria from living minors and organizations who have authority to evaluate or examine the consent of minors to be prescribed as one chapter of the Organ Transplant Act which is an equal hierarchy of law to an act in order to protect living minors and transplant surgeons.