Jurisprudential and Legal Study of Organ Donation by Anencephalic Neonates

Organ transplantation is one of the achievements of medical science that today faces new challenges, such as access to new resources to address the shortage of organs, especially for children. Following the scientists' consensus on non-vital organs transplantation and patients with brain death transplantation, a new proposal was provided in the medical community to use anencephalic newborns as a new source for transplantation.Anencephaly is a fetal abnormality caused by a defect in the neural tube closure in the fetal head. Babies with this defect often die before birth, and who born alive are unconscious and die within the first few hours after birth. In this study, we seek to answer the question of whether donating organs of such infants is compatible with the jurisprudential and legal principles of our society or not.

In descriptive-analytical article after arguments in favor of this theory, it is analyzed based on jurisprudential-legal texts.

Although some Western thinkers agree with this theory by reasons such as the similarity of these patients to brain death and parental consent, there are objections to each of these reasons that lead to the rejection of the above theory. After explaining the reasons of the proponents and criticizing it, an alternative proposal is presented that agrees with the jurisprudential and moral principles of the society. According to this proposal, there should be no restrictions on non-vital organ donation by anencephalic neonates with parental consent.