John A. Robertson

About the author: John A. Robertson is a professor at the University of Texas law school, where he teaches criminal law and bioethics. He is the author of Children of Choice: Freedom and the New Reproductive Technologies.

One of the most important ethical rules surrounding organ transplants is the "dead donor rule," which states that donors may not be killed in order to obtain their organs. Some exceptions to this rule have been proposed. First, some hospitals have proposed harvesting organs from anencephalic infants (who are born without an upper brain) in order to save other infants. Second, some states have introduced bills that would allow death row prisoners to have their vital organs removed as a form of execution. These proposed exceptions to the...