A Study of improvement methods for determining brain death and organ transplantation

Abstract

The Act on Organ Transplantation makes it possible to judge brain death with the consent of the bereaved family, even if the donor does not express his/her intention to donate in writing before death, as long as the donor does not express his/her intention to the contrary. Legislation on long-term donations is a new area that was created relatively recently and is still developing with the development of medical and life science technology. It can be said that it is meaningful to examine the current state of overseas legal systems and the content of legislation in order to identify and improve the problems of laws related to transplantation of organs and other organs. In particular, Germany had an organ transplant scandal (Organspende-Skandal) based on changes in organ transplantation, followed by institutional changes. On this basis, we examined the long-term harvest requirements and consent of the German organ transplantation law and derived some improvements in our organ transplantation law. First, as with the consent requirements for determining brain death, there is a problem as to whether or not the bereaved family can refuse the donation despite the donor's consent. If the bereaved family has inherent rights to the long-term donation after the donor's death, the bereaved family will naturally have the right to veto the long-term donation. In the Korean method of determining the scope of relatives, which does not allow such relatives to have the right of veto, it would be a problem to neglect the person's right to self-determination. The second is the scope of long-term donors and recipients. Under the Organ Transplantation Law, family members or bereaved families are the subjects of consent or refusal of long-term donation of organs from donors. German long-term transplant law stipulates that close relatives and decision-making authority must only be given to the donor if they have had personal contact within the last two years prior to death. there is That is, close relatives are primarily spouses or registered Lebenspartners, children, parents, siblings and grandparents. In addition, if an arrangement is made among close relatives and there are multiple close relatives in the same position, it is sufficient if one of them satisfies the above circumstances.