Here is Case 477 from the Hastings Center Report 8 (October 1978): 23-5, at 23:
Mr. R, a twenty-eight-year-old engineer, has been on dialysis for three years, and is growing desperate because of the restrictions it places on his life. He can not work regularly because of the amount of time he has to spend in a dialysis center, and he feels weak and is suffering from many of the debilitating side effects of the treatment.
Mr. R has already investigated the possibility of obtaining a transplant. However, he had been adopted as an infant and does not know his natural family. In addition, tests show that he has a rare tissue type that makes it highly unlikely that a suitable cadaver kidney can be found.
Mr. R's physical and mental state continue to deteriorate and his wife suggests a solution to the transplant surgeon. She will, she says, become pregnant, and after five or six months, have an abortion. The kidneys from the fetus could then be transplanted in her husband.
The surgeon knows that technically such a transplant could be performed, and that the graft would probably not be rejected. He also knows that Mr. R has threatened to commit suicide if he has to remain on dialysis for an indefinite period.
Should he agree to transplant the kidneys of a deliberately conceived and aborted fetus?
What say you? Please support your answer.
