In a contribution published today on the website of the Bishops’ Conference of the Netherlands, Cardinal Willem Eijk, contact person for ethical matters at the Bishops’ Conference, welcomed the law on organ transplantation approved by the Upper House on 14 February according to which all Dutch adults are potential organ donors, unless they specifically request to opt out. Organ donation after death, the Cardinal wrote, is an “act of Christian charity and solidarity”, even though one cannot have a “free and unlimited right” to organs: “Each person should be able to freely decide to provide one’s own body for organ donation after death”. Under the system approved in the Netherlands, all citizens of legal age – who are not registered donors – will receive a letter asking them whether they give their consent to transplantation or whether they appoint a person to decide for them. Failure to reply to the letter (which will be followed by another letter 6 weeks later) will automatically make the person a donor. The cardinal pointed out that organ removal can only take place after “brain stem death has been diagnosed, even if breathing and blood circulation are still active because of the medical intervention”, and that according to Catholic ethics “not all organs are transplantable”: those related to the “personal identity”, such as the brain or parts thereof and reproductive organs, are to be excluded.