Clause 3 - ''Appropriate consent'': adults
Human Tissue Bill
3:15 pm
Dr Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
The hon. Gentleman said earlier that it is a leap to move from the current situation, as he put it, of taking organs only with the explicit consent of the persons whose organs they are. I am saying that we should not do that at the moment, except in a small minority of cases where there is a donor card or register. We rely on either the guess of the person's wishes by the relatives, or their own consent, but at the moment in the vast majority of cases we do not rely explicitly on the consent of the owner of those organs.