Solidarity beyond the grave: Yielding organs in a Nordic welfare state

Abstract

According to a survey carried out in 2009, Finnish citizens are exceptionally willing to donate their organs after death, an attitude that paved the way for a 2010 amendment to the Tissue Law that introduced an 'opt-out' consent policy. Reactions to the legislative change ranged from taking a highly utilitarian stance on the issue to expressing indignation over the welfare state meddling with citizens' right to self-determination and ownership of the body. In this article I consider how willingness to donate is linked to the notion that donation is a civic obligation, as well as a means to distribute the valuable national resource that organs are deemed to be. I explore how the welfare state relates to national attitudes towards donation, and I discuss culturally specific terms for donation as a way of understanding the emotions that surround it. By examining the rhetorical moves that turn the body into a community resource, I analyse the specifics of bodily citizenship in Finland, and particularly how the notion of solidarity can be used to explain citizens' motivation to donate their bodies after death. A key finding is that solidarity is not only needed in order to bring about donation but also produced as a result of donation.

Attitudes of European students towards family decision-making and the harmonisation of consent systems in deceased organ donation: a cross-national survey

“…Several factors may contribute to these disparities, including organisational measures (e.g., availability and role of transplant coordinators), mortality rates from causes that may well result in brain death (e.g., strokes and road accidents), and variations in clinical practice in donation after circulatory death (e.g., in duration of no-touch periods) as outlined by Lomero et al [6]. Other factors involve the ethical and social aspects of organ donation and transplantation such as ambivalence towards brain death criteria, differences in how families make sense of donation decisions, emotional attitudes regarding the dead body, public acceptability of deceased donation, and levels of trust in and solidarity with the healthcare system [7][8][9][10][11]. In addition, and highly relevant for our study, there are distinct ways of valuing autonomy and family relationships between European regions, for example with regard to the authority of the family to overrule the deceased's last wishes [12,13].…”