Commodified Kin: Death, Mourning, and Competing Claims on the Bodies of Organ Donors in the United States

Abstract

A pronounced disjunction characterizes symbolic constructions of the cadaveric donor body in the United States, where procurement professionals and surviving donor kin vie with one another in their desires to honor this unusual category of the dead. Of special concern is the medicalized commodification of donor bodies, a process that shapes both their social worth and emotional value. Among professionals, metaphorical thinking is key: death and body fragmentation are cloaked in ecological imagery that stresses renewal and rebirth. Such objectification also obscures the origins of transplantable organs, renders individual donors anonymous, and silences kin who mourn their dead. In response, donor kin have grown increasingly assertive, generating alternative public mortuary forms that exclude professional mediators. In so doing, they challenge the medical assumption that anonymity is central to transplantation's continued success. Through donor quilts and Web cemeteries, they proclaim the personal identities of donors who, at times, may speak beyond the grave, offering critiques of donation as socio-medical process in the United States.

Chinese Criminal Law Associated with Human Organ Transplantation Crimes

“…Deliberately, for example, surgical instrument left in patients or donors in the body cause of death, the patient or the donor needs a blood transfusion and responsible staff deliberately error type, led to the deaths of patients. Mandatory harvesting the organs causes death to others and others steal his bodily organs killing others [6]. For example, mandatory harvesting the organs for organ transplants or criminals associated with selling and killing are criminals.…”

Resurrected Bodies

“…Religion might be found in the third world, Scheper-Hughes implies, but she is definite that ours is a "'rational', secular world" (2000,203). Occasionally the explicitly religious content of transplant advocacy is noted as in Sharp's (2001) account of donor memorial services. However, in Sharp's work religion is not seen as a legitimate component of organ transplant, but as a "mask", a false front for the secular work of soliciting donors and commodifying bodies.…”

“…To assert, as Lesley Sharp (2001) does, that organ donor memorials use "green" metaphors of renewal, rebirth, and reconstruction to mask the individuality of the donor and massage the public acceptance of organ donation is to risk missing whatever generative functions these rituals may serve. 19 Presumably ritual organizers (transplant procurement officials and others) believe they are performing something other than a surreptitious grab for organs.…”

Del milagro al sueno cumplido: retorica de la esperanza y reivindicacion profesional en las noticias de prensa sobre trasplantes en Espana, 1900-1960

“…En un sentido más amplio, en el campo de los trasplantes, al igual que en otros ámbitos tecnocientíficos de la modernidad, la introducción de nuevas alternativas terapéuticas y la normalización del uso de tecnologías médicas sirvieron para fomentar el discurso sobre el progreso, definiéndolo como suma de actuaciones o medidas adoptadas que desplazan los límites de lo posible (Maynard, 2006) y abren nuevos horizontes para la renovación del cuerpo (Sharp, 2001). Paulatinamente, como ha señalado Lyotard (1986) en su análisis de la modernidad, el presente se redefinió como incompleto y el énfasis se situó en el futuro, percibido como la tierra prometida donde se haría realidad el sueño de la ciencia.…”