Zumrut Alpinar Sencan

Content of the Turkish book: Prof. Dr. Yaman Örs* is one of the most important professors who studied and improved the studies in bioethics in Turkey. The book consists of his related papers in Turkish. There are five main chapters in this book: (1) Main Lines of Yaman Örs’s Approach to Scientific Philosophy, (2) His Writings on Ethics, (3) The Ethics of Philosophy, (4) His Writings on Bioethics, and (5) His Papers on Medical Ethics. For each chapter, small introductory parts are written by the editor in order to make it easier for the reader to follow the thoughts of Örs. *Department of Medical Ethics (Ret.), School of Medicine, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey.

The possibility of organ transplantation has created new problems for medical ethics as well as clinical medicine. One of them, organ procurement, is tried to be solved mainly by two systems. Many countries have adopted the ‘optin system’, which aims to raise awareness and make the individuals donate their organs by their own will. The other system, ‘optout’ or ‘presumed consent’, which considers all members of society as potential donors, was adopted by some countries. In this system, individuals should state that they do not wish to donate their organs; otherwise they are considered as donors. By trying to ground our argument with various justifications, we claim that optout system for organ procurement is a fairer option regarding the right to access to healthcare needed, and therefore it should be implemented instead of optin