ABSTRACT
Consent is one of the oldest of old chestnuts in bioethics and many will be amazed to think that there is any mileage left in it. However, the fact that it is such an old chestnut has led to the most staggering complacency about the assured role that consent in general and fully informed consent in particular plays in many contexts. The role of consent in many contemporary contexts is highly problematic although this fact is seldom recognised. Ken Mason thinking particularly of the way consent has been appealed to in the debate concerning posthumous organ and tissue retention and use and in debates concerning the ethics of genetic testing or profiling of embryos, children at birth or indeed at any time before they can consent to what happens to them, as well as in all cases of problematic capacity to consent. It is doubtful whether there is any such thing as a posthumous right.
