I've been following the argument about "brain death" and organ donation for several years. It was an impersonal discussion for me until the end of last month when a friend's son was in an ATV accident and landed in the hospital in a coma and on a ventilator. He was showing some improvement a week after the accident and then brain swelling cut off the circulation to part of his brain and the hospital started agitating to do an apnea test where they turn off the ventilator for a few minutes to see if the patient breathes on his own. That triggered the memory of an article I read by Dr. Paul Byrne who said the apnea test often hurts the patient's chances for recovery, causing irreversible brain damage, and begins the process of organ donation. If the patient doesn't breathe on his own the hospital will declare the patient "brain dead," turn the ventilator back on to keep the organs fresh, and begin the process of acquiring and extracting his organs. The patient is still, in fact, very much alive and the removal of vital organs is what actually causes death. You can't live without a heart!
In a culture of death the "harvesting" of organs from patients, even living patients, isn't hard to justify. After all, the babies have been "harvested" for years -- for cosmetics, vaccines, and more recently, embryonic stem cells. Besides, "nobody would want to live like that" (i.e., brain-damaged, unwanted, useless, etc.). People are now one more commodity to buy and sell. There's lots of money in organ donation. Learn more about how people are being hustled into the afterlife, especially young people in traumatic accidents with good healthy organs. There are some real horror stories out there.
For more on brain death and organ donation go here and here.
Please pray for my friends' son and all those facing these tragedies and trying to defend their loved ones from an increasingly pragmatic medical profession that sees sick patients not as individuals to be saved, but organ farms to be harvested.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteI like a lot of what you say - and it gives for great debate as I work for the church. However, I disagree with leaving someone in a coma and on a vent for years and years. Can they recover? Sometimes. Prior to modern medicine, would they have died? Most likely. I would hope that my family would not keep me alive for the sake of keeping me alive. If the chances of recovery are slim, I would much rather have my organs "harvested" and give the gift of life to another, then to waste money and resources keeping me alive.
The question is: How do you know what the chance of recovery is? Playing god is what the doctors are doing in many of these situations. Unless we have a much better means of anticipating the outcome of continued life support or not, I think one has to opt for the possibility of recovery.
ReplyDeleteThe Church teaches that you cannot directly kill someone no matter how good your intention. If a person is alive, you may not kill them by harvesting a vital organ. The fact is that there are cases where someone was being prepped for organ donation when he moved. Maybe that's why they now give paralysing drugs along with the other drugs before they take the organs. Now why would you have to paralyse someone who isn't dead?
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree what you say about the ventilator. It is certainly an extraordinary means, but there are people who have lived for years on one -- like Christopher Reeve. These are difficult situations, but if the ventilator is removed and the person cannot breathe on his own, he should die naturally, not be immediately hooked up again to keep his organs fresh before he's killed by live dissection. That is simply satanic.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteI believe that you would be on a different side of this argument if you yourself needed an organ or tissue. How selfish is that thought that you claim that these doctor's are simply "harvesting" organs and not trying to save patients when I am sure if you needed a heart or kidney or liver you would be the first one with your hand out requesting one giving no regard as to the sacrifice a family had to make by choosing organ donation and accepting the fact that their loved ones are truly brain dead. Lord have mercy on your soul.
You don't know me very well. I would rather die than see medical professionals hasten the death of another person to give me an unmatched organ like a heart or liver, although livers are good at regenerating, so donating a portion of a liver is a different matter -- as are kidneys since everybody has two and one kidney will take over the job of both.
ReplyDeleteIf one of my children needed a kidney and I was a match, I hope I would have the courage to donate one of my kidneys. (Although they're pretty old and tired.) I wouldn't take a kidney transplant myself at this point because I've lived a long life and death comes to us all. I'm not interesting in trying to prolong my life at all costs.
Some patients have "waked up" while they were being prepped for organ donation. So were they dead and did they miraculously come back to life? Or is "brain death" just a convenient semantic game to make more organs available? I'd like to see all the money put into embryonic stem cell research put into adult stem cell research because there are incredible results coming out of it.
It's amazing to me Mary that you perceve all of what you say to be fact. Also, I sincerely hope you take MY heart some day to keep living, and spreading your nonsense about organ and tissue donation.
ReplyDeleteNo thanks. I will not hasten someone else's death to lengthen my life. Death is only the door to our eternal home -- whether that is heaven or hell. As for "nonsense," I'd say the "brain death" charade fits that bill. If a person's body is still pumping blood, is warm, can still assimilate food and fluids, then the person is not dead no matter what game you play to declare him so. Taking an essential, unpaired organ will certainly kill him. That IS a FACT.
ReplyDeleteI note that your comment contains no facts, just your opinion that I'm full of nonsense - not a very persuasive argument.