Should organ donors receive payment? A new consultation seeking the public’s views has been launched.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has launched a public consultation regarding the ethical issue of organ and tissue donation – should people be paid to donate or should it be seen as a moral obligation for us all?

The Council is taking into account all sorts of donations, given both in life and after death. There is current demand for organs, tissue, sperm, eggs and other material for use in medicine and research, plus the donation by a healthy person to test the safety of new medicines.

Payment for donations is illegal in the UK, apart from covering a donor’s expenses. Organ donation in the country currently relies on a person being on the national organ donor register or helping out a loved one or society as a whole.

Professor Dame Marilyn Strathern, Chair of the inquiry, said: “We could try to increase the number of organ donors by providing stronger incentives, such as cash, paying funeral costs or priority for an organ in future, but would this be ethical?

“We also need to think about the morality of pressing people to donate their bodily material. Offering payment or other incentives may encourage people to take risks or go against their beliefs in a way they would not have otherwise done.”

However, with the population on the increase, more and more people will become in need of a donation – there are currently around 8,000 people waiting for an organ transplant in the UK alone. “We ourselves or one of our relatives may one day need donated organs or tissue, and most of us are likely at some point to use NHS medicines that have been tested on healthy volunteers or human tissue.

“Given this, perhaps donating parts of our bodies should been seen as a moral obligation for all of us,” continued Professor Strathern.

The Council is seeking views from professionals and the public on a number of questions. Click here to view its consultation paper, Give and take? Human bodies in medicine and research.

The closing date for responses is 13 July 2010.