The Obligatory Gift of Organ Transplants: The Case of the Finnish Law on the Medical Use of Human Organs, Tissues, and Cells. (August 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lindberg, Susanna
• Other Names: Prozorov Sergei guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Alternatives. Volume 38:Number 3(2013)
• Page Start: 245
• Page End: 255
• Publication Date: 2013-08
• Subjects: biopolitics -- thanatopolitics -- life -- death -- organ transplants; Globalization -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals; Sociology -- Periodicals; 306.2
• DOI: 10.1177/0304375413497846
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0304-3754

Abstract

Recent debates on biopolitics have focused on negative and positive interpretations of "life" that is the object of biopolitical apparatuses. Agamben examines the "bare life" that is produced by the sovereign ban, Negri and Hardt speak on the contrary of emancipatory biopolitical production, while Derrida and Esposito study (auto-)immunitary reactions that constitute living beings. The aim of this article is to examine a concrete case that permits to evaluate the explanatory power of these positions. The test case pertains to the recent amendment of the Finnish law on the medical use of human organs, tissues, and cells. It shows very clearly how phenomena that conventionally constitute the basis of proper, personal existence, namely the biological body and death, are not natural phenomena anymore, insofar as they are delimited by biopolitical decisions, that also redefine social relations in a radical manner.