Law Commons^™

The Dog And His Shadow: A Response To Overcast And Evans, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Aesop's Fable, "The Dog and the Shadow," begins with a dog walking over a bridge with a piece of meat in his mouth. Looking down into the stream, he sees his shadow. Thinking it is a bigger dog, with a piece of meat twice the size of his own, the greedy dog decides to get it. Snarling, he opens his mouth to attack. At that moment the meat falls from his mouth, into the stream. The dog realizes his mistake, and sadly says to himself, "Grasp at the shadow and lose the substance."

Drs. Overcast and Evans have not yet …

Regulating Heart And Liver Transplantation, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Organ transplantation has been a favorite topic of health lawyers since its inception. Organ procurement was addressed with the adoption of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act in all fifty states, and "brain death" has been recognized both judicially and legislatively across the United States. Nonetheless, it is now apparent that the major problems in organ transplantation are not legal in nature, and thus neither are the solutions. Heart and liver transplants are extreme and expensive medical interventions that few individuals can afford and few hospitals can offer. In an era of economic scarcity, how (if at all) should organ transplant …