Posted by
voiceoftruth on Thursday, December 11, 2008 10:57:12 AM
There's a townhall column out there today calling for Obama to repeal the existing prohibition on making the buying and selling of organs illegal. I guess the author either doesn't know or care about the following facts. Most people are pretty unknowledgable when it comes to what goes on behind the scenes in the organ transplantation industry. You must learn the truth and then determine for yourself if the mode of organ transplantation is both ethically and morally sound, if you or your loved ones are potential organ donors. That's a free will choice based on actual knowledge not misconceptions.
Perhaps you didn't realize that organs are harvested from the living and not the dead?
An increasingly "loose" classification has developed over the years of "Brain Death" (and more recently "Cardiac death") within the organ transplantation industry in relation to what qualifies as viable physical state for removing an organ from a donor.
As noble minded as the idea behind organ transplantation is, the truths of it's practices are growing far less noble. With the real possibility of the increased legalization of Euthansia becoming an additional driving factor and partner to the proponents of the organ transplant industry we must proceed with extreme caution, and understand what is currently going on behind the scenes. It is not only a spiritual issue but a truly ethical one, as well.
The New England Medical Journal recently published an article that made clear that the criterias for brain death, or cardiac death in organ transplantation did not equate to what would be defined as "true death". Donors are not literally dead according to that definition when the organ is taken from their body, the state of true death occurs from the taking of the organ itself.
Herein lies the crux of the issues which all pro-lifers and human rights supporters must deal with, the donor is not literally dead by true death standards and for many of those categorized as "brain dead" (for organ harvesting purposes) they are many times not meeting most or in some cases even a small minimum of the standard requirements that are supposed to classify someone as technically brain dead!
New England Journal of Medicine: 'Brain Death' is not Death - Organ Donors are Alive
Will the Catholic Church now issue a form position against vital organ donation?
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08081406.html
"If it is true, however, that brain death and cardiac death are invalid as criteria for true death, it would make morally illicit vital organ donation, since such donation would in some cases result directly in the killing of the donor for the purpose of harvesting his organs."
"Troug and Miller, after admitting that the scientific literature does not support the criteria for 'brain death' and 'cardiac death' as being real death, suggest instead that ethicists should simply remove the requirement for dead donors. "The uncomfortable conclusion to be drawn from this literature is that although it may be perfectly ethical to remove vital organs for transplantation from patients who satisfy the diagnostic criteria of brain death, the reason it is ethical cannot be that we are convinced they are really dead," they write.
"Similarly they note that with 'cardiac death', "although it may be ethical to remove vital organs from these patients, we believe that the reason it is ethical cannot convincingly be that the donors are dead." Troug and Miller suggest that, rather than insisting on dead donors, "ethical requirements of organ donation" should be looked at "in terms of valid informed consent under the limited conditions of devastating neurologic injury."
The following quotes are from two separate articles, one from Lifesite News, a pro-life reporting site that carries a lot on this topic recently, the other is from an attorney's site, specializing in protecting the rights of victims of car accidents.
The Demise of "Brain Death"
"We are bombarded with propaganda that encourages organ donation. For an organ to be suitable for transplantation it must be taken from a living person."
"Dr. David Greer reported in Neurology (Jan 2008) that many highly regarded hospitals in the U.S. routinely diagnose "brain death" without following the guidelines promulgated in 1995 by the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital surveyed the top 50 neurology and neurosurgery departments nationwide; 82 percent responded. Results showed that "adherence to the AAN guidelines varied widely, leading to major differences in practice, which may have consequences for the determination of death and initiation of transplant procedures. Apnea testing was omitted by 27 percent; still more distressing is that many fail to even check for spontaneous respirations."
"In plain, straight talk," writes Dr. Lawrence Huntoon, editor-in-chief of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, "the survey indicates a high likelihood that some patients are being 'harvested' in some hospitals before they are dead! In hospitals with aggressive transplant programs (hospitals make a huge amount of money on transplant cases), making sure a patient is dead before going to the 'harvesting suite' may be viewed as a minor technicality/impediment."
New practices in organ donation inspire debate
http://www.finzfirm.com/accidents/Car_Accident/new_practice_organ_donation
Harvesting begins just minutes after heart stops beating
"The number of kidneys, livers and other body parts surgeons are harvesting through a controversial approach to organ donation has started to rise rapidly, a trend that is saving the lives of more waiting patients but, some say, risks sacrificing the interests of the donors."
"Some doctors and bioethicists, however, say the practice raises the disturbing specter of transplant surgeons preying on dying patients for their organs, possibly pressuring doctors and families to end treatment, harming donors' care in their final days and even hastening their deaths. "
"It's going to go up exponentially," said James Burdick, who leads organ-donor efforts at the federal Department of Health and Human Services."
"The person is not dead yet," said Jerry Menikoff, an associate professor of law, ethics and medicine at the University of Kansas. "They are going to be dead, but we should be honest and say that we're starting to remove the organs a few minutes before they meet the legal definition of death."
"In response to such concerns, most doctors wait five minutes after the heart stops before pronouncing patients dead. But doctors at some hospitals wait three minutes, others two. In Denver, surgeons at Children's Hospital wait 75 seconds before starting to remove hearts from infants, to maximize the chances that the organs will be usable..."
Now just imagine for yourself the loosening of moral and ethical standards which is growing within the medical and scientific worlds. the lust for money which drives most people within these fields, and then add these two phrases together
ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION + LEGALIZED EUTHANASIA =
I leave it to you to figure out the results of that equation.
It makes me think back on an old movie from a few decades back called Coma.