Prélèvement d'organes et donneur potentiel

Choosing words to think with is not an innocent process: adding the adjective potential to organ donor is an illustrative example. A donor cannot be potential: since any one individual is a whole person, it would be illegitimate to add a conditional predication. We are not just talking about a question of vocabulary, of semantics, this is a true question of qualification: saying that a donor is potential would be like looking at the donor's organs as having potential yet denying the integrity of the individual person. Use of the term potential might be warranted in the case of a deceased donor after cardiac arrest. This would be a utilitarian approach deciding for and in the place of the donor, reduced to the simple status of a dividable body.