The interfamilial principle and the harvest festival

Abstract

It is widely accepted that younger children can act as saviour siblings by donating cord blood or bone marrow to their gravely-ill brothers or sisters. However, it is under dispute whether these procedures are in the best interests of the child. This article suggests that parents may be relying on a thinly-veiled interfamilial approach, where the wider benefit to the whole family is used to justify the procedure to the Human Tissue Authority in the United Kingdom. This article suggests that the merging of familial interests to validate a non-therapeutic bone marrow harvest on a child forces altruism in a patient too young to understand, rendering the harvests unlawful under current law.