ANENCEFALIA E TRANSPLANTE DE ÓRGÃOS

Abstract

Organ’s transplant in neonates without brain presents an ethical conflict. Neonates without encephalon are, under the criterion of brainy death adopted on article III of Law No. 9,434, February 4, 1997, considered alive, whereas brainy death implies necessarily the failure of the brainstem, what does not happen in the brainless case. Nevertheless, the Federal Medicine Council’s Resolution No. 1752/ 04 establishes an allowance so that the physician can realize the organs’ transplant and/or brainless neonate’s tissue, after her birth. The adoption of such a measure by the FMC implies the neonate’s death carried out by the doctor, since she is alive, according to the legal parameters pointed out. The dilemma begins because there are distinct ethical positions. The FMC has consolidated the understanding that the rules of brain death are not applicable and unnecessary to the neonate under such conditions, aiming at the realization of transplant of organs, i.e., posture clearly utilitarian. This text defend the respect to the person as long as central axiological axis in the whole bioethical discussion.