[I posted this on my personal blog a day or two ago. I guess I will post things on here as well if I think they might interest everyone. :::smile:::)
Coming out of China…
"The majority of transplanted organs in China come from executed prisoners, state media reported Wednesday in a rare disclosure about an industry often criticized for being opaque and unethical….
Condemned prisoners are “definitely not a proper source for organ transplants,” the report quoted Vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu as saying. He has publicly acknowledged that most transplant organs are taken from executed prisoners, but only with prior consent.
Foreign medical and human rights groups have long criticized China’s organ transplant trade as being opaque, profit-driven and unethical. Critics say death row prisoners may feel compelled to become donors.
…
China has acknowledged that kidneys, livers, corneas and other organs are routinely removed from prisoners sentenced to death, but gave no details. Chinese transplant specialists estimate at least 90 percent of transplanted organs come from executed prisoners, human rights groups say."
Read the rest of the article here.
Sigh. What do you do when people need transplants to live, but the living are not nearly meeting the demand as donors? I for one would love to be an organ donor (not a living donor, mind you, but donate my body after I’m dead) but there are no cut-and-dry laws in Maryland about when exactly someone is dead and their organs can be removed. And this is not the case in MD alone; unfortunately there is no consensus on the definition of death.
Is a person dead when they are brain dead?
Is a person dead when there is no brain stem function?
Is a person dead when their heart stops?
Is a person dead when a combination of the above occurs?
Who knows. I come down with those who assert that a person is actually dead when there is no longer holistic bodily function. Philosophically, at this point the human body no longer has a telos or end toward which it is working. Instead, different machines are keeping different parts of the body “machine” working separately. Nothing is integrated; the body is working like parts of car work, but there is no life, no soul.
In the end, though, it is the doctor’s call. Whether the rest of us without white coats agree with it or not, the doctor is the one who is there and who has to make the decision: is the thing in front of me on the table a person or a cadaver?
We need to pray for our doctors, that more of them recognize the weighty responsibility they carry, and we need to encourage them to continue to live their vocations as doctors rather than bow to the utilitarian society in which we live.
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I agree that this issue is particularly difficult to parse. With my meager understanding of science and medicine, I would say that any action on the part of the physician that actively ends the life of the patient --- whatever their current medicals status -- must be wrong.
ReplyDeleteI hesitate to become an organ donor because my understanding is that some organs must be harvested from a still living body (ie. blood must still be flowing to those organs via the heart.) It seems to me, then, that the act of removing the organs would constitute an active measure toward ending the life of the patient.
Can anyone speak to this?
Your last paragraph was spot-on, Genna. I remember you once told me, "If more scientists were also philosophers the world would be a much better place." :)
(P.S. - Great topic, Genna! Can we start a list of blogs we follow and include your blog?)
lol if you like. :)
ReplyDeleteI agree that doctors should not take steps to actively end the life of patients, but I guess the problem seems to be that no one has concretely *defined* what life (and death) are. You can keep a body working on machines indefinitely, though eventually (pardon) the brain literally turns to a jelly. We might be able to keep the processes going, however, I would hesitate to call it living anymore.
Hum hum...I'm curious...when do you think death occurs? From what you said it sounds like you would say that death occurs when the heart stops pumping blood to the organs...?
Glah I love this stuff.
I would not advocate the indefinite use of machines as the sole means of keeping a person alive (this is also, I gather, the general position of the Church...?)
ReplyDeleteAgain, I'm afraid my opinions are posited with a minimum of medical expertise. But! I suppose when the hearts ceases to beat -- and consequently, ceases to carry oxygen to the brain -- that would be a pretty fair point at which to make a determination of death. I find it a much more error-proof test than detectable "brain activity". That's just my gut-reaction.
The "brain death" call just seems so susceptible to subjective judgments -- and from there it's such a short step into "quality of life" judgments. (See: Terri Schiavo.)
Me too!!! :D
Speaking of Terri Schiavo: her father, Robert Schindler died last night.
ReplyDeleteRequiescant in pacem.