Organ donation is wrong?

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Stylteralmaldo

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I was listening to the Drew Mariani show yesturday and his guest (I forget who it was: Mr. Burns/Dr. Burns/Fr. Burns?) was saying that organ donation was wrong.

A caller disagreed saying that laying down one’s life for another is a noble thing to do. This caller referenced Saint Maximillian Kolbe who gave his life for another in a Nazi concentration camp.

Fr. Burns(?) responded by saying Saint Maximillian Kolbe had no other choice than to give his life and that organ donation is a pre-meditated thing. He gave the impression that we are chosing the will of God by going the route of donating organs because they can not harvest organs for donation unless the patient is still alive. In other words, once someone dies, the organ dies also.

He also referenced the Cathechism as a source as to why we should not do this.

I really don’t know what is correct. Can anyone help me with this one?
 
This is a response to the same question that was asked on the EWTN forums from Fr Torraco…

*The Church teaches that organ donation is morally permissible either before or after death. If before death, it is permissible if it does not endanger the health or life of the donor. If after death, the donor’s consent must be given beforehand. After death, all organs, with the exception of the brain and the gonads, may be donated. On the other hand, one’s entire body may be donated to serve the advance of medicine.
It is true that organs donated after death must be removed before life-support mechanisms are turned off. The life-support mechanisms, however, are no longer keeping a person alive, but rather artificially continuing bodily processes in order to keep the donated organs transplantable. This is morally permissible. *
 
I don’t know what this Burns person was quoting from the Catechism because this is what I found by simply putting in the words “organ donation” into the online search engine on the Catechism’s website:

Catechism of the Catholic Church–Organ Donation

2296 Organ transplants are in conformity with the moral law if the physical and psychological dangers and risks to the donor are proportionate to the good sought for the recipient. Organ donation after death is a noble and meritorious act and is to be encouraged as a expression of generous solidarity. It is not morally acceptable if the donor or his proxy has not given explicit consent. Moreover, it is not morally admissible to bring about the disabling mutilation or death of a human being, even in order to delay the death of other persons.

Seems pretty clear to me!
 
It sounds like maybe the radio show was only addressing the issue of a specific type of organ donation where the donor is still living and thus would be killed by the donoation of an organ?
That practice would be an offense, but this is not the normal mode of organ donation. There are tissues and organs that can be harvested after death but within a certain time frame.
There are also donations refered to as ‘transplants’ from a living person to living person. Bone marrow, kidney, liver, blood would fall into this category.

Pope John Paul II

:[T]he Gospel of life is to be celebrated above all in daily living, which should be filled with self-giving love for others. . . . Over and above such outstanding moments, there is an everyday heroism, made up of gestures of sharing, big or small, which build up an authentic culture of life. A particularly praiseworthy example of such gestures is the donation of organs, performed in an ethically acceptable manner, with a view to offering a chance of health and even of life itself to the sick who sometimes have no other hope (Evangelium Vitae, no. 86, original emphasis).

–k
 
what happens alot of time is that the organ donor is “brain dead” but still has a beating heart due to life support machines. If it were not for the machines, the donor’s heart wouldn’t beat, for he or she is already dead. This is when many organs are harvested. There’s a great description of the procedure in the booke “Stiff, the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” by Mary Roach. The book goes into the discomfort the author and medical personnel feel when taking organs out of someone with a beating heart. The thing they keep in mind was that the person was dead; they were looking at an artificially animated corpse.
 
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Della:
2296 Organ transplants are in conformity with the moral law if the physical and psychological dangers and risks to the donor are proportionate to the good sought for the recipient. Organ donation **after death ** is a noble and meritorious act and is to be encouraged as a expression of generous solidarity.
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Exactly. The key question to keep in mind, when removing a vital organ from a donor, is: Is the donor dead?
 
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JimG:
Exactly. The key question to keep in mind…Is the donor dead?
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I think that was the situation being posed by “Burns”. I think what he was saying is that giving one’s life for another is supposed to be a last resort. When we become an organ donor, we are then taking the “last possible option” of being a martyr so another may live into the hands of someone else. The thinking of this being that our organs may be harvested before our time on earth is up and that we may not be in a state of grace. God may be wanting to give us more time but then we elect to donate our organs before our time is up.
 
I listened to the show as well. This is what I remember:

An internal organ only remains useful for 3-5 minutes after the supply of oxygenated blood is lost.

Dr. Burns gave some context and said it would take about 1 hour to do surgery on a heart and about 3 hours on a liver.

So, basically, I concluded that if it takes longer than 5 minutes to extract the desired organ. It’s problematic.

I talked with my wife about this briefly, and concluded that if I died I would be willing to donate my corneas, or something like that. Internal organs would take too long to extract, and there would be too much of a temptation to hasten death for the purpose of organ extraction.
 
I have a nice antique all-tube organ in my dining room, with bass pedals and a Leslie speaker. I was going to donate it to my church as a backup, but after reading this now I’m not so sure. 😦

So, what do you think? Will it be okay to donate my organ to the church? Anyone? :confused:
 
I also listed to the radio show and was quite surprised at the topic and the thought the organ donation was wrong. I felt like I must have missed a few homilies. I really still think it’s OK and that it would let someone live. I don’t like the idea of being killed to have someone harvest a heart or liver, but if I am about to die any minute, then I really don’t think I want to be so scrupolous. Am I wrong?
 
My understanding is that Catholic teaching only allows the removal of vital organs from those who are dead. (You can donate organs which do not threaten your life, i.e. one kidney, if you still have one left, while you are still alive.) In theory, removing necessary vital organs is only permissible if death has occurred. And this can mean brain death. The only question in my mind is whether or not brain death is really death.

JimG
 
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Fitz:
I don’t like the idea of being killed to have someone harvest a heart or liver, but if I am about to die any minute, then I really don’t think I want to be so scrupolous. Am I wrong?
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Catholic teaching is that you can not be killed to obtain your organs. Removing your organs cannot be the cause of your death. You have to be brain dead *before * your organs are taken.

JimG
 
I listened to part of the show, and I thought he was just saying it is problematic, in that the decision on part of the MD in charge may not come at the correct time, i.e. the donor may not be dead. I didn’t think he said it was wrong, but that it may put you in harms way before your time because you are an organ donor.
 
Dr. Burns’ position was that a harvestable organ has to be living in order to be viable, therefore it is the act of removing that organ which effectively ends the life of the donor, so the doctor is actually “killing” the donor - removing all chance of God’s miracle. It is not a natural end to life. He then reasons that the person who signs the back of the license to authorize donation in the event of death is not maintaining the respect for life which is required by all Catholics.

My argument with his reasoning is that the donor is kept ‘alive’ by artificial means to prolong the viability of the organs slated for donation. Without those extraordinary means the donor would die a natural death - but then that would render his organs unusable. So if Dr. Burns’ argument is that donating is contrary to the natural law of life then so would keeping any patient alive by artificial means be in violation of the natural law. Without those extended measures these people would die natural deaths, yet Catholics are expected to lean away from DNRs.

It is where the debate about ‘pulling the plug’ on prolonged life support patients comes into play… a whole other subject.

It was some of the callers into the program who raised the concern about doctors possibly giving more preference toward treating the accident victim who signed the card first over the one who did not because the sooner they get the donor on life support the better chance they have of harvesting the organs.

Other callers also questioned whether or not in some circumstances doctors would stop doing everything they could to restore full life to a patient but instead ‘settle’ for just keeping them alive for the sake of the organs.

I personally, would not want to have my death be in vain. If there is any chance at all that another person can have more time on earth to do God’s will when my time is up, then go for it.
I understand that Dr. Burns’ argument is that only God knows when that time is up. He seemed to be questioning ‘brain dead’ as if he fully expects God to work miracles on every person designated as such, and that doctors removing organs denies the donor access to God’s miracle. I think the real miracle is in being freed from the physical body through death to begin the spiritual process of reuniting with God. I honestly am not so certain I would want to spend more time on earth, but if it is God’s will, then it will be done.

I do not believe doctors would behave in that fashion. If I’m wrong, however, then I still figure that if the situation which places me in the hospital in such dire straights that I cannot think or communicate for myself, then I’m either on death’s door or I am so close to it that should I survive it would not be in any way close to what resembled my life before the situation - so I trust in God at that point. I trust completely that if He has a miracle for me He will communicate that to the physicians/nurses/my family members so that nothing will be done to me which is not in God’s plan. I’ve heard enough stories from physicians who speak of something inside telling them to wait just a while longer for many of these patients who were presumed to be on death’s door yet recovered fully that I believe completely in God’s ability to get their attention when needed.

I also am not afraid of death. I know I have time to spend in purgatory, there is not enough time in the human lifespan for me to prepare my soul to be that close to God in the end. I don’t have the will to remain true…I stumble regularly. So I pray my rosary and my Divine Mercy chaplets daily and I’ve instructed my children, husband and family members to pray harder than ever upon my death for it is the best goodbye gift they could give me.

By the way, I understand that on Monday that same show is going to have an expert presenting the other side of the organ donation debate.
 
The argument I have heard from those in the medical community is that a brain dead patient really is dead. Dying is a process, and once brain death occurs, cardio-pulmonary death inevitably soon follows. The patient is kept on a respirator for the sole purpose of keeping alive those harvestable organs in what is now considered a cadaver.

There was another thead on this forum some time ago in which someone who knew more about the clinical aspect of this than I do, assured me that they do not even use the term ‘brain death’ anymore. The criteria for death simply includes those neurological factors. Of course, cardio-pulmonary death is also considered death!

He further assured me that no doctor would prematurely withhold treatment in the absence of true brain death.

Personally, I’m somewhat uncomfortable with the theory. From a philosophical point of view, we don’t know when the soul leaves the body for certain. We do know that dead organs are no good to anybody. And I’m not comfortable with killing someone just to get the organs. I’ve read "living wills’ which seem to give a truly positive preference for leaning more to the side of death than life. And that worries me, because I can imagine elderly and disabled people being pressured to sign them.

JimG
 
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YinYangMom:
…I personally, would not want to have my death be in vain. If there is any chance at all that another person can have more time on earth to do God’s will when my time is up, then go for it.I understand that Dr. Burns’ argument is that only God knows when that time is up…
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You could look at the situation the other way. Perhaps your time isn’t up and the other person’s is.
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YinYangMom:
By the way, I understand that on Monday that same show is going to have an expert presenting the other side of the organ donation debate.
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I’ll try to hear “the other side of the story”. Thanks for the info. 🙂
 
The Barrister:
I have a nice antique all-tube organ in my dining room, with bass pedals and a Leslie speaker. I was going to donate it to my church as a backup, but after reading this now I’m not so sure. 😦

So, what do you think? Will it be okay to donate my organ to the church? Anyone? :confused:
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Very Witty… :rolleyes:
 
I myself work in the medical field, though I’m not an MD, and it’s my understanding that there is no recovery from “brain death”. Many people think that “brain death” is akin to a coma, but that’s not the case; it’s the point at which all central neurologically controlled bodily functions stop without outside manipulation (ie ventilators and cardiac machines). The heart can keep beating after brain death simply because it runs on its own electrical motor, so to speak (you can actually remove a heart from the body and it will still beat regularily, and for a LONG time if supplied with oxygen).

The body must be kept “pumping” with these machines while organs are harvested, but it’s no different than pushing water through a hose: the hose moves, but it’s not alive. When a person is brain dead there is no activity from the brain stem up, and the brain literally becomes nothing more than a fatty lump in the person’s skull. Aside from the miracles of literal rising from the grave, there has never been an instance of a person coming out of brain death; a brain dead person is a slow-rotting corpse.

Nowadays we don’t even use the term brain dead so much, but rather just dead. We’ve learned enough about the body’s functions to know that sometimes the body can be made to look alive when it’s not. The body is a machine, after all, albeit an organic one, and it can be made to run seperately from the brain (or likely even the head, I would imagine).

Incidently, the story that organ donors are given less treatment is an absolute myth. We work our butts off in emergency medicine to keep everyone alive, except for those with valid DNR orders, and even then we work overtime to give them needed treatment until they need resusitation. Ceasing or neglecting treatment not only goes against our most basic training and emotions (NOBODY likes to have someone die “on their watch”), but it can also classified as murder under many circumstances. For example, once we’ve started CPR, we aren’t legally permitted to stop until we are either relieved by someone of equal or higher training, or we literally collapse from exhaustion. Less than that and we can get hit with criminal charges!
 
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JimG:
I’ve read "living wills’ which seem to give a truly positive preference for leaning more to the side of death than life. And that worries me, because I can imagine elderly and disabled people being pressured to sign them.

JimG
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I wonder, though, if organs from the elderly or disabled would be harvestable anyway. I would imagine that by 75 years of age or so my organs would be on their last legs anyway so they would not be of much help to a donor recipient. As for the disabled, I suppose it depends on the disability and the age of death. Certainly something worth considering, though. Thanks for mentioning it.
 
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Stylteralmaldo:
You could look at the situation the other way. Perhaps your time isn’t up and the other person’s is.
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Yes, that is a possibility, but again it is a matter of trust - that all will go according to God’s plan - so if it is that person’s time I won’t be a match for the person or some other logistical barrier will present itself. I still would sign the donor card in case it *is *God’s will for me to help another person live longer to know, love and serve Him. If I don’t sign the card I won’t be able to help.
 
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