ABSTRACT
The rise in living sources of organ donations yields alternative conducts in the procurement of organs. The shift from public formal to informal channels of organ supply leads to processes of ethical privatization – in which it is the patient herself, and her close social surrounding, that is searching for her kidney in a do-it-yourself fashion. Furthermore, the privatization of organ procurement leads to the proliferation of different matching agencies that mediate between recipient and potential donors. An expanding range of living donor types, from the “anonymous stranger”” to the “emotionally related,” appears, charging the key ethical concept of altruism with new meanings.
