Medico-Legal Issues in Organ Transplantation and the Appraisal of its Legal Regimes in Nigeria

Human organ transplantation is as old as human history. In this paper, God is acclaimed to be the author of human organ transplantation. Meanwhile, owing to advancements in medical research, the tendency is now toward animal organ transplantation to the human organ. Also, medical advancement, most especially the preservation of human beings as neomorts for cadaveric is seen as creating serious problems for the medical practice. The ethical, legal, and jurisprudential problems that ensued in the various emerging trends of organ transplantations are the motivating factors for this paper. Meanwhile, while medical research continues on animal organs as substitutes for human organs, few of the experiments done have not succeeded in preserving the lives of the human donees.  Because of the need for the preservation of life, medical efforts continue in this regard. Meanwhile, this paper addressed the above issues and appraised the legal regimes in Nigeria in terms of their inadequacies. The aim is to bring to the awareness of our legislature, the problems inherent in the present statutory provisions with the view to restate the need for the enactment of a more robust legislative instrument that would consider the current trends in medical advancements. The aim and objectives of this research work are to examine the concept of organ and organ system, the typologies of organ transplants, the jurisprudential perspective of organ transplantations, the attitudes of some religious sects to organ transplantation, the ethical issues in organs transplantation and embark on appraising the legal regimes of organ transplantation in Nigeria, both statutory and at common law given the recent decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Esabunor & Anor v. Faweya & Ors. Findings revealed that serious controversies arose on issues relating to the ethics of the medical profession, the legal implications in organ transplant matters, issues as to the timing of death, preservation of human bodies for organ cropping and transplant, and the transplant of animal organs to human which might shape the identity of man beings and place restrictions on the human subjects of experiment freedom with the likelihood psychological effect and adverse relational matters.