Suicides & organ donors question

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MustangMikey

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I posted this in response to another thread question & never got a response there so I’m going to ask again, here. Thanks!

Re: System where Suicides can Donate Organs Immediately?
Hello. Let me first be upfront with the fact that I’m not Catholic. I found this forum thread by Googling the topic.
I have never seen the movie “Seven pounds” but I have seen the movie John Q many times.
Denzel Washington plays the father. His son collapses during a little league baseball game & tests show he has an enlarged heart & must have a transplant SOON or he will die.
The fathers HMO will not pay & therefore will not put him on the transplant list. After doing everything in his power he reaches his breaking point & takes the heart doctor & some ER patients hostage until the hospital changes it’s mind & puts his son on the list. As this unfolds his son worsens to the point of near death & he comes to the decision that the only way to save his son is to shoot himself in the head. The doctor at first refuses but after talking he agrees to do it if the father insists on killing himself to save his son. In the end his son is put on the list & at the last minute gets a transplant.This is not sanctioned suicide for the donation of organs.

As a soldier in the U.S. Army I lost my left leg @ the hip & was paralyzed from my T-6 (Chest) down & spent 2 years & 3 months of hell in the hospital. I have battled depression & suicidal thoughts for many years. I believe in a GOD that shows infinite forgiveness. Rapists & murders are forgiven as is all other manner of sins.
A solder that throws himself on a grenade to save his comrades is committing suicide. What does GOD say? “No greater love hath a man that he would lay down his life so that other’s may live.” or something to that effect. If I someday choose to end my earthly existence I have the meds to do it at any time. That is not what I would do. I would go to the hospital with my pistol & one bullet with my donor card pinned to my chest and at some point take my life with the knowledge that I would save the lives of a person in need of a heart. One or two in need of lungs. One or two in need of kidneys. And another in need of a liver. That is my choice to “throw myself on a grenade”. Laying down my life so that others may live. Is that a sin? Would I go to Hell? I think not. Perhaps someday I will know the answer to that question.
Put yourself in John Q’s shoes. Would you not willingly end your life to save your child’s life? Or the lives of others?
Unless you have had to endure the years of mental & physical pain that I feel you have no right to judge my actions or those of others in the same position. “Judge not lest Ye be judged.”
I will only be judged by GOD. Not by humans. Especially ones that believe a mortal man in a funny hat is “Infallible”. He has no right to tell me what is right or wrong for me to do.It is my belief that my Lord will greet me with open arms.
I fought the fight. I finished the race. I kept the faith.
May GOD bless all of you… Peace.
 
The Church always drew a very clear line between martyrdom and suicide. In many ways, suicide and martyrdom are opposites: suicide is a will to die when you could live on; martyrdom is a will to live even if you have to die. Suicide is an end in itself; it is the end of a road. Martyrdom is just a means to go on, armed with hope and faith. I believe your example of the man who throws himself on the grenade to save his friends’ lives is just heroism; there’s nothing wrong with it; he wants to save others although he dies in the way. But killing yourself with a gun and donate organs is no heroism at all; the end is death, not life, even if life happens to be some weird by-product of that willed death.
 
May God strengthen you,
May He give you courage.
May He ease your pain in your body and mind,
May He lighten your path and direct you.
May he show you why you are here and why you are needed.
May God give you all the graces necessary,

Please read some of the prayer requests in the “Prayer Intention” Forum, you are not alone. Read them, and you will see the power of prayer and that belief moves mountains.
 
Mustang Mikey,

I want to try to answer your question as well as I can. I want to start by saying that I have 0 qualifications to answer your question…I am not a priest, a theologian, an counselor, or an expert in really anything. I’m really not even that good a Catholic. I am a respiratory therapist who has taken care of too many people in situations like yours. Again, to be honest, I really have no business even attempting to answer this…but from one human being to another I’ll try. There may be those on this forum who will be upset because I’m not giving the textbook Catholic answer. But I did want to try to answer you, but realize I speak not for the Church, but from one human being to another. And I suspect you’re not really looking for textbook answers here.

I have read your post at least a dozen times, and still don’t know what to say.

Let me start by thanking you for your service to, and sacrifice for, our country. I know how trite that sounds, but there are no words that can adequately thank someone who has made the sacrifice you have. I also won’t claim to understand what you must be going through, because nobody but you can.

You mention the highest form of sacrifice, those who “lay down their lives for others”, like a soldier who jumps on a grenade or what Jesus did for us. There is nothing more noble. But I’m not sure that you can compare this with a person willfully taking their own life, regardless of the cause. There is a difference between sacrificing one’s life and taking one’s life.

You mention a few movies which highlight individuals who struggle with deciding whether it is right to make such a sacrifice, and ask what I would do if I had to lay down my life for one of my kids. Man do I hope I never have to go there, because I honestly can’t tell you what I would do. For real, I honestly don’t know how to answer that.

You ask if there is a system under which arrangements could be made in advance to have organs harvested immediately after a suicide. As a respiratory therapist, and a professor of respiratory care, I am fairly familiar with organ donation. I am not aware of any such system. And I think that committing suicide for organ donation is not nearly as clean as process medically as those movies would have you believe.

But most importantly, I want to speak to something I am reading, correctly or incorrectly, between the lines. You clearly and understandably struggle with issues better dealt with by someone who knows a lot more about this than I do. Please consider discussing these issues with a VA counselor, or a physician, or a trusted friend. I can’t say I feel your pain, but I can almost read it, and I ask you to speak to someone who is much better able to help you with it than I am

I realize how lame this answer is. The only answer that would be any lamer would be no answer at all. If I can help you in any way, or you want to talk about this more, just PM me.
 
Generally people who snuff themselves cannot be donors. There’s a level of ethics for one thing, and the method of suicide for the other. Shooting yourself in the head? That’s just stupid for donation and unlikley to help.

Brain is dead, heart has stopped, lungs aren’t filling, those organs are now dying, the doctors then come, they try to resuss you, as is required, then once they realise its hopless, which will be after a few minutes, the time it will take to take you to theatre, prepare the equipment, slice you open and scope you out clean it will be at least 20 minutes. Not to mentio, if the bullet in your brain didn’t kill you outright, you could have had clot formation.

People who put up for donation, have to have a few things pumped through them first to ensure the organs can survive transport. It’s not as easy as “bang, slice, saved someone’s life”. When a donor is taken to surgery, the donor is still physically alive, with machines keeping thinks ticking over. The heart is still beating as the liver, kidnys and lungs are removed.

As for Catholic teaching, no evil can be done that good may come of it. That means snuffing yourself in an attempt to save someone. Yes, people who kill themselves may have deminished culpibility from pain and mental illness, but doing it because you think you will save someone is just silly, and will express a level of full knowledge and full consent. It’d be like having an abortion, knowing its wrong, consenting to it, because you think that having an abortion would help say your other children who are already born.

Reality wise, killing yourself to donate your organs, its just not realistic. You’d be better off offering a live donation, ie. chunk of your liver, kidney or lung, bone marrow.
 
This is my 1st post in the forum and the notion put forward in this topic has been bothering me a lot lately

What if you’re caught in a situation where, you either have to kill yourself or watch someone you care about die?

Saw this in a tv show a while back(Criminal minds:Suspect behavior)
Your wife or son or daughter is held at gunpoint by psychopath, and he demands that you kill someone before a prescribed time,otherwise the loved one will be shot dead
1 of the victims of this,ended up killing himself because he wasn’t willing to take the life of an innocent person,but still wanted to save his wife

In such a situation, is his soul still condemned to hell for committing suicide?
 
MustangMikey said:
I posted this in response to another thread question & never got a response there so I’m going to ask again, here. Thanks!

Re: System where Suicides can Donate Organs Immediately?
Hello. Let me first be upfront with the fact that I’m not Catholic. I found this forum thread by Googling the topic.
I have never seen the movie “Seven pounds” but I have seen the movie John Q many times.
Denzel Washington plays the father. His son collapses during a little league baseball game & tests show he has an enlarged heart & must have a transplant SOON or he will die.
The fathers HMO will not pay & therefore will not put him on the transplant list. After doing everything in his power he reaches his breaking point & takes the heart doctor & some ER patients hostage until the hospital changes it’s mind & puts his son on the list. As this unfolds his son worsens to the point of near death & he comes to the decision that the only way to save his son is to shoot himself in the head. The doctor at first refuses but after talking he agrees to do it if the father insists on killing himself to save his son. In the end his son is put on the list & at the last minute gets a transplant.This is not sanctioned suicide for the donation of organs.

As a soldier in the U.S. Army I lost my left leg @ the hip & was paralyzed from my T-6 (Chest) down & spent 2 years & 3 months of hell in the hospital. I have battled depression & suicidal thoughts for many years. I believe in a GOD that shows infinite forgiveness. Rapists & murders are forgiven as is all other manner of sins.
A solder that throws himself on a grenade to save his comrades is committing suicide. What does GOD say? “No greater love hath a man that he would lay down his life so that other’s may live.” or something to that effect. If I someday choose to end my earthly existence I have the meds to do it at any time. That is not what I would do. I would go to the hospital with my pistol & one bullet with my donor card pinned to my chest and at some point take my life with the knowledge that I would save the lives of a person in need of a heart. One or two in need of lungs. One or two in need of kidneys. And another in need of a liver. That is my choice to “throw myself on a grenade”. Laying down my life so that others may live. Is that a sin? Would I go to Hell? I think not. Perhaps someday I will know the answer to that question.
Put yourself in John Q’s shoes. Would you not willingly end your life to save your child’s life? Or the lives of others?
Unless you have had to endure the years of mental & physical pain that I feel you have no right to judge my actions or those of others in the same position. “Judge not lest Ye be judged.”
I will only be judged by GOD. Not by humans. Especially ones that believe a mortal man in a funny hat is “Infallible”. He has no right to tell me what is right or wrong for me to do.It is my belief that my Lord will greet me with open arms.
I fought the fight. I finished the race. I kept the faith.
May GOD bless all of you… Peace.
Click to expand...
A soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save his comrades is NOT committing suicide.
 
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