ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the maleficence involved in renal and other forms of living organ donation and the beneficence. It focuses on a consideration of when living donor transplantation (LDT) use is ethically and legally legitimate in terms of maleficence and beneficence and in the light of alternative choices. Medical professionals often push LDT to the background, presumably mostly because of concerns about maleficence, and guidelines and legislation often overly restrict the freedom to use it. LDT small-bowel segment donation is experimental and so is its cadaveric counterpart. Experience of liver LDT is very limited, both in terms of the numbers of renal transplants and the fact that the procedure only started to be utilised in the late 1980s. Under ordinary circumstances kidney LDT would be legally acceptable because the risk of serious and permanent impairment of the physical integrity and health of the donor is minimal.
