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OurLadyPray4US
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LOL I was to address that in a separate post - coming soon
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OurLadyPray4US
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Quote from cathinfo.com/index.php?a=topic&t=5182&min=3&num=3 :
(see the whole talk at the link given above - well worth reading)
Brain Death: What’s the Problem? JMJ
by Fr. Phil Wolfe, FSSP
Some 50 years ago, the noted moral theologian Fr. Francis J. Connell, CssR was posed a question concerning embalming:
Question: In view of the modern opinion that apparent death may precede real death by a considerable period of time, what admonitions should be given to our people, particularly to Catholic undertakers, as to how soon the process of embalming can be started after a person has apparently breathed his last?
Answer: This is a problem of great importance in the United States, where the embalming of the dead is a general practice. The main principle is this: the process of embalming may not be commenced until it is certain that life is extinct. For, undoubtedly, if the person is still alive, the embalming process will directly cause death. Furthermore, mere probability - even very great probability - that death has ensued will not justify the beginning of this process; for it is not permissible to do anything which even only probably will directly cause the death of an innocent person (Cf. Damen, Theologia moralis [Rome, 1944], I, n. 100)…
Now let me pose a question to each of you: **Suppose that you are about to embalm someone, and as you begin to make an incision on the body, suddenly the “corpse” begins twitching and grimacing. **
In the light of the moral principles stated by Fr. Connell — first, that the process of embalming may not be commenced until it is certain that life is extinct, and second, that it is not permissible to do anything which even only probably will directly cause the death of an innocent person, In light of those moral principles:
**Please raise your hands if you would continue the embalming as scheduled.
For those of you who raised your hands - Please raise your hands if you think that the proper thing to do would be to give this corpse an anaesthetic - so it would quit twitching — and then continue with the embalming.
Please raise your hands if you think that if you continued with the embalming, you would actually be killing someone. **
OK, thank you.
Now let me pose another question to you: Suppose that you are asked to embalm someone in another room, and when you arrive, you see that this person is actually breathing with a ventilator, has a heartbeat, has wounds which are healing, and is producing urine. In the light of those moral principles — first, that the process of embalming may not begin until it is certain that life is extinct, and second, that it is not permissible to do anything which even only probably will directly cause the death of an innocent person,
In light of those moral principles:
Please raise your hands if you would agree to do the embalming as requested.
Please raise your hands if you think that if you continued with the embalming, you would actually be killing someone.
OK, thank you.
OK. Well, we really don’t need to continue with this talk. You already know all you need to know… All I’m going to do from here on out, is fill in the details…
Brain death: what’s the problem?
Yeah, OK: what is the problem? Before we get into this, I would like to make the observatoin that we’ll only hit some of the high points, OK? Now, Let’s start tackling this topic by taking a quick look at 5 statements: It’s important to realize that the 1st 3 quotes were NOT taken from opponents of brain death…
Brain death: what’s the problem? First quote: From the University of Missouri Health Care Family Guide to Neuromedicine: “Most people believe death occurs when a person’s heartbeat and breathing stop. This is called ‘cardiac death.’ By law, the state of Missouri recognizes that death also occurs when the brain and the brainstem stop working. This is called ‘brain death.’ If breathing and heartbeat are maintained by machines, a brain dead person will appear to be alive. The person’s skin may be warm: the chest will rise and fall in a breathing motions: a heartbeat is seen on a monitor. But, if there is no brain activity, the person is dead. Cardiac death is simple to understand: the heart just stops. Brain death is harder.”
Cardiac death is simple to understand: the heart just stops. Brain death is harder to understand… Brain death… is harder to understand…
It sure is…
It sure is hard to understand how a ‘dead person will appear to be alive.’ It sure is hard to understand how a dead ‘person’s skin may be warm…’ It sure is hard to understand how a dead man’s ‘chest will rise and fall in a breathing motions.’ It sure is hard to understand how a dead man’s heartbeat can be seen on a
monitor.’
Now it’s important to realize that this quote is NOT taken from an opponent of brain death…
Brain death: what’s the problem? Second quote: From a paper by the Chief of Medical Ethics at the Carolinas Medical Center:
"…our language concerning death could use some ‘cleaning and pressing.’ Thus I propose that hospitals consider eliminating ‘brain-death’ from their policies. In its place, I suggest ‘Determination of death by neurological criteria.’ This language invites a more accurate way of thinking, namely… that irreversible cessation of total brain function is a sufficient condition for death, and that medically accepted neurological criteria may be used to diagnose it.
-continued-
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OurLadyPray4US
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- quote - continued:
‘we must acknowledge how puzzling it is that an individual who shows ‘signs of life’… can nevertheless be dead…’ Yeah, that’s puzzling all right.
Now it’s important to remember that this quote is NOT taken from an opponent of brain death…
Brain death: what’s the problem? Third quote: From The New England Journal of Medicine, March 7, 2002 p. 786. (Book review of Brain Death ed by Eelco F.M. Wij####s. Reviewer: Thomas E. Finucane, MD) Listen carefully:
“…some persons reliably defined as brain dead have clinically significant residual function, as evidenced by electroencephalographic activity… unexpected survival… attempts to sit up, reproducible eye opening in response to pain, head movements in response to stimulation… Most perplexing, children who have been given a diagnosis of brain death continue to grow, and pregnant women have delivered healthy infants up to four months after being given a diagnosis of brain death.”
Most perplexing, children who have been given a diagnosis of brain death continue to grow, and pregnant women have delivered healthy infants up to four months after being given a diagnosis of brain death. Yeah, that’s perplexing all right…
Isn’t the New England Journal of Medicine a serious publication, or is this some kind of a sick joke? Aren’t we talking about dead people here? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to believe - that brain dead people are, well, dead? Because if we’re supposed to believe that brain dead people are dead, then can someone please explain how it is that dead children can Quote: “continue to grow”?
Can someone please explain how a dead woman — a woman who has been dead for four months — can give birth to a healthy child?
Can someone please explain how dead people can have: Quote “attempts to sit up?”
Can someone please explain how dead people can have: Quote: “reproducible eye opening in response to pain?”
Can someone please explain how dead people can make Quote: “head movements in response to pain?” Can someone please explain how it is that Quote: some persons reliably defined as brain dead have clinically significant residual function, as evidenced by… unexpected survival…
Now just think about that statement. Just exactly what did these people unexpectedly survive? A fire? No. A bombing? No. A massive heart attack? No. A terrible plane wreck? No…
No, what these people unexpectedly survived was Death. Death. They unexpectedly survived death. Dead people survived death. Oh yeah great. So much for all you people that thought Easter was a big deal…
Now it’s important to realize that this quote is NOT taken from an opponent of brain death…
Brain death: what’s the problem? Fourth quote: From Celebrate Life: July-August 2002 Excerpts from “Not quite dead” by Monica Seeley. p. 13.
“…a casual search of pro-life resources readily produces evidence of ten… cases, the most gruesome being one (described in the Journal of California Nurses for Ethical Standards) in which a “brain-dead” patient put his arm around the assisting nurse as he was about to have his heart removed for transplant.”
A “brain-dead” patient put his arm around the assisting nurse as he was about to have his heart removed for transplant.
What have we learned from these quotes so far? We’ve learned that Brain death… is hard to understand…
**We’ve learned that ‘we must acknowledge how puzzling it is that an individual who shows ‘signs of life’… can nevertheless be dead…’ **
We’ve learned that some persons reliably defined as brain dead have clinically significant residual function, as evidenced by… By such things as attempts to sit up, reproducible eye opening & head movements in response to pain, and most amazingly - dare we say - miraculously? unexpected survival…
And, we’ve learned that a “brain-dead” patient put his arm around the assisting nurse as he was about to have his heart removed for transplant.
Brain death: what’s the problem? Final quote: From: Are Organ Transplants Ever Morally Licit?A commentary on the address of Pope John Paul II to the XVIII International Congress of the Transplantation Society (By Bishop Fabian Wendelin Bruskewitz, Bishop Robert F. Vasa, Walt F. Weaver, Paul A. Byrne, Richard G. Nilges, and Josef Seifert ) Catholic World Report March 2001
"…when the surgeon makes the incision to remove the donor’s healthy live organs (usually the liver or lungs are taken first, followed by the heart and kidneys). The donor’s body reacts with moving, grimacing, and squirming, unless the donor is first given a paralyzing drug. However, even with the paralyzing drug, there is an increase in blood pressure and heart rate. The heart continues beating until the transplant surgeon stops it—a few moments before cutting it out.
Causing death to sustain life. In response to the increasing number of protests from nurses and anesthesiologists, who sometimes react strongly to the movements of the supposed “corpse,” and because these movements sometimes make it impossible to continue the operation, transplant surgeons have come to rely on the use of paralyzing drugs. These drugs are used in the same manner and dosages as with living patients, but here they are used in order to suppress signs of life—and in order to dissipate the protests and objections of the medical, nursing, and pastoral personnel who are increasingly uncertain that the organ donor is truly dead.
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OurLadyPray4US
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- quote - continued:
Please see the rest here - it is well worth reading it! cathinfo.com/index.php?a=topic&t=5182&min=3&num=3
(the link is to a schismatic SSPX website, but this is the only place where I could find the full-length talk by Fr. Phil Wolfe, FSSP, a Catholic priest belonging to FSSP which is in full communion and in good standing with the Catholic Church)
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thistle
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I’m not ploughing my way through long posts and weblinks.LOL I was to address that in a separate post - coming soon
Just tell me in a sentence YOUR response to my point.
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OurLadyPray4US
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My response is not important. This is not about me. This is about medical science, and about Catholic bioethics. I made my posts for the benefit of those who are willing to educate themselves, to learn how to sort out legitimate ethical medicine from immoral practices and abuse of medicine. You will never understand this stuff based on one-sentence conversations.
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Padster
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Thanks VERY much for deleting my posts on this subject. As an organ recipient, I am perhaps affected more than most by this garbage, and it is an utter disgrace that this forum is allowing this erroneous and damaging point of view to continue.
Your ‘legitimate ethical medicine’ could only ever involve living donors. To use ‘properly-dead’ cadaveric donors you would have to wait until their organs stopped working which would render them useless for donation purposes.
Padster
Your ‘legitimate ethical medicine’ could only ever involve living donors. To use ‘properly-dead’ cadaveric donors you would have to wait until their organs stopped working which would render them useless for donation purposes.
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Orogeny
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As I noted in my original post, there are certainly some strong opinions on this thread! Perhaps opinion isn’t strong enough of a word. Agenda seems to be more appropriate.
The Church is not opposed to organ donation. OurLadyPray4US clearly is.
The choice is who do we, as Catholics, follow.
Peace
Tim
The Church is not opposed to organ donation. OurLadyPray4US clearly is.
The choice is who do we, as Catholics, follow.
Peace
Tim
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thistle
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Your response is important and my question was addressed to you and not some long articles which cannot answer back.
You have basically said or implied it is not possible to know when a person is dead. I ask again at what stage would you have a funeral/bury someone (let’s say a loved one of yours)?
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Orogeny
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I don’t know who Fr. Wolfe is or what his medical/scientific qualifications are, but if we are going to drop names, I can do that, too.
Meet Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, Ph.D.:
Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D., Director of Education
Fr. Tad is a priest of the diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. As an undergraduate he earned degrees in philosophy, biochemistry, molecular cell biology, and chemistry, and did laboratory research on hormonal regulation of the immune response. He later earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Yale University, where he focused on cloning genes for neurotransmitter transporters which are expressed in the brain. He also worked for several years as a molecular biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Fr. Tad studied for 5 years in Rome where he did advanced work in dogmatic theology and in bioethics, examining the question of delayed ensoulment of the human embryo. He has testified before members of the Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Virginia and North Carolina State Legislatures during deliberations over stem cell research and cloning. He has given presentations and participated in roundtables on contemporary bioethics throughout the U.S., Canada, and in Europe. He has done numerous media commentaries, including appearances on CNN International, ABC World News Tonight, and National Public Radio. He is Director of Education for The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia and directs the Center’s National Catholic Certification Program in Health Care Ethics.
Fr. Tad has presented on the science and ethics of stem cells and cloning numerous times across the country and abroad. Some of the institutions to which he has been invited to speak are:
UCSF, San Francisco, CA; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Boston College, Boston, MA; University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA; Holy Cross College, Worcester, MA; University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA; Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis; Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL; Jordan Hospital, Plymouth, MA; University of Chicago, Chicago, IL; University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX; Cambridge Health Alliance Hospital, Cambridge, MA; Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI; University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN; St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, Boston, MA; Salve Regina University, Newport, RI; University of Dallas, Dallas, TX; Southern New England School of Law, Dartmouth, MA; Marymount University, Arlington, VA; University of St. Thomas, Houston, TX; Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA; Stonehill College, Easton, MA; Boston University, Boston, MA.
I have attended one of Fr. Pacholczyk’s seminars on bioethics. He is qualified in the areas of medicine, science and theology AND he is in line with Catholic teaching.
Peace
Tim
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Shin
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Thanks for all the information on the subject, OurLadyPray4Us!
Here’s a sermon on the subject too.
May We Donate Our Organs?
Here’s a sermon on the subject too.
May We Donate Our Organs?
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Padster
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There is nothing new in that audio link. It quotes from the same sources as OLP4U does. It is most telling that the preacher has withheld his name, which is a pity, since if he has the audacity to post such potentially damaging and confusing material on the internet, he should be putting his name to it.
My worry is that some Catholics will take his (and OLP4U’s) words to heart. They will stop donating organs, and recipients will feel guilty and believe that they have benefited from some cruel Mengele experiment.
Padster
My worry is that some Catholics will take his (and OLP4U’s) words to heart. They will stop donating organs, and recipients will feel guilty and believe that they have benefited from some cruel Mengele experiment.
Padster
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OurLadyPray4US
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I will try to be brief
This is a legitimate question, because nobody should be buried, or even embalmed, before moral certainty is acquired that the person is dead. When people die, we do not bury them in a hurry. The person is dead, does not breathe, there’s no pulse, the body is cold, rigid (rigor mortis sets in) - yes, we wait until a plethora of signs of death set in. And even then, with all those signs, we typically wait 2-3 days with the burial in moderate climates - but burial could be forced earlier in hot climates, if the corpse starts decomposing, and getting the smell due to decomposition of the body.
But once again, I am not important, but the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Per the Catholic Church:
The main principle is this: the process of embalming may not be commenced until it is certain that life is extinct. For, undoubtedly, if the person is still alive, the embalming process will directly cause death. Furthermore, mere probability - even very great probability - that death has ensued will not justify the beginning of this process; for it is not permissible to do anything which even only probably will directly cause the death of an innocent person (Cf. Damen, Theologia moralis [Rome, 1944], I, n. 100)…
Posts 35-37 above quote a Catholic priest comparing our prudent procedure with embalming, versus the recklessness of organ harvesting from “brain dead” patients. When the patients writhe and squirm in pain, the transplant surgery team simply injects them with paralyzing drugs (muscle relaxants) so they stop writhing. But the patients still react with increased blood pressure and heart rate (tachycardia) - so how can we be sure they are dead? Why don’t we show the same prudence as with embalming? Why not wait and make sure they are dead?
It looks like **we are producing thousands of Terry Schiavos per year in this country, in the name of organ transplant, and we are dishing them out a gruesome fate worse than what Terry had to endure. At least with Terry, they gave her morphine to control her pain. With the organ donor victims who happen to be alive when their organs are harvested, they don’t receive any morphine or anesthesia. They receive muscle paralyzant so they can’t move, and then their bodies are vivisected (dissected while still alive). **
Here’s another quote from Are Organ Transplants Ever Morally Licit? - co-authored by Bishop Bruskewitz, Bishop Vasa, and Dr. Byrne former president of the Catholic Medical Association (quote from catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=20515 ) - to further illustrate that we used to be very careful, before dissecting a corpse (or burying the dead, for that matter), waiting long enough and making sure that the person was truly dead, and how the organ transplant business has thrown all that caution to the wind:
The requirement set down by the Pope is “complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity (in the cerebrum, cerebellum, and brain stem).” The criterion “cessation of all brain activity” is more stringent than “cessation of function.” In order for a doctor to know with moral certainty that “complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity” has occurred, the patient’s circulation and respiration would have to cease sufficiently that the cerebrum, cerebellum, and brain stem would be destroyed. That is, the doctor would have to know not only that the brain had lost all function, but that it could never recover function. Given the current state of medical research, as long as an intact brain remains, we cannot be certain that the brain could not recover function. And surely, in a life-or-death matter, any lingering uncertainty should be resolved in favor of life.
The Holy Father declares that there must be “moral certainty” for an ethically correct course of action. The Holy Father clearly teaches that “vital organs which occur singly in the body can be removed only after death–that is, from the body of someone who is certainly dead.”
In an address entitled “Brain Death & Euthanasia,” Dr. Josef Seifert notes: "We must also remind ourselves of an empirical proof of the uncertainty of our knowledge concerning the time of death. Think of the ‘life after life’ experiences of people who were declared clinically dead and still had all sorts of experiences associated with their body. Could not brain dead persons be in a similar state prior to the occurrence of actual death? The actions of organ-harvesting are based on the assumption that the event of death has occurred prior to a certain moment and can be determined [with certainty] by the medical profession before the natural phenomenon of death with all its obvious features has set in." [emphasis added]
Dr. Seifert continues: **"Death in this classical sense does not just involve irreversible cardio-pulmonary arrest but is accompanied by many other well-nigh indubitable signs: from the cessation of all vital functions to the frigor (coldness) of death to the rigor mortis of the corpse to the actual decomposition of the body.
“Even when faced with the ‘whole body death,’ one should wait for some time after actual death sets in before one dissects a corpse. To declare death when the first undoubted marks of death have set in, is not presumptuous. Yet to act or to dissect a corpse on the first declaration of death is presumptuous.** It is much more pretentious, however, to determine the occurrence of death by means of a mere set of scientific facts and theories about the portion of body-tissue which contains the person, while the body as a whole still lives.”
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thistle
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To Ourladypray4us.
I can’t reply using your post as there are too many characters and it won’t let me reply. Here is my comment to your post.
Frankly what you are suggesting based on these nonsense articles is shameful.
The Church does not agree with you. It doers not say sit around for several days watching the body of your mother until she starts to rot and then jump up and say okay she’s dead now let’s bury her!! That is a disgusting thought.
As I said the Church does NOT agree with you. At such a stage no organ would be useful for any transplants. The Church ALLOWS organ transplants and does so knowing that organs have to be removed long before decomposition starts.
Fortunately, not many agree with your thoughts.
I can’t reply using your post as there are too many characters and it won’t let me reply. Here is my comment to your post.
Frankly what you are suggesting based on these nonsense articles is shameful.
The Church does not agree with you. It doers not say sit around for several days watching the body of your mother until she starts to rot and then jump up and say okay she’s dead now let’s bury her!! That is a disgusting thought.
As I said the Church does NOT agree with you. At such a stage no organ would be useful for any transplants. The Church ALLOWS organ transplants and does so knowing that organs have to be removed long before decomposition starts.
Fortunately, not many agree with your thoughts.
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Kathrin
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I thank everybody for their participation in this thread I started; I didn’t intend to provoke such a discussion though. My question was not about whether organ donation per se is ok - I had already talked with a priest about that and also we can read about it in the Catechism. My question was specifically about some issues I hadn’t thought of - what, as a believing Catholic, I must maybe ALSO consider if I agree to become a donor. That is, which medical procedures that may involve tissues harvested from my body are NOT permissible in the eyes of the Catholic Church.
Kathrin
Kathrin
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Gia_B
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OurLadyPray4Us, have you ever heard the phrase “too long; didn’t read”? Posting the full text of half a dozen articles does not convince me to agree with you. It makes me tune you out. You might have made some very good point, but I only read your first post and then decided that I didn’t feel like reading the rest of the novel-length posts. People would respond a lot better to your arguments if you learned to summarize these things yourself and use the occasional quote as back up.
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