L
liberal_friend
Guest
How can donation of organs be moral, if the donor has to be killed to remove the organs?
A friend of my family had a stroke recently. He had an operation to remove some presure in his brain, although he was awake prior to the operation, when he did not come out of his comma within 40 hours of the operation being completed, his doctor declared him “brain dead”–wink wink–sooooo legelly he no longer had any rights and could be taken off his ventilator at any time (in 22 states the doctor can remove “brain dead” patients from life support at their discretion). My friend was an organ donor, so the doctor and family agreed to allow him to continue living until they could harvest his organs for donation (since he wouldn’t need them anymore since he was dead…although they were still keeping him alive??? you figure it out)
I thought that the Catholic position was that death occured when your soul leaves your body…not when you are in a deep (possibly irreversible) coma??? But it was explained to me that once “real” death occurs the organs begin decompossing right away and the organs can’t be harvested, so doctors just take them while the patient is still alive…hence the invention of the term “brain death” in the late 60s. The organ donation is actually what kills the donors!!!
Of course if his brain was really dead, he could not have kept his blood pressure up, nor maintained his body temperature, so is “brain death” just another 1984/Brave New World medical term we’ve been sold.
Go figure!!!
A friend of my family had a stroke recently. He had an operation to remove some presure in his brain, although he was awake prior to the operation, when he did not come out of his comma within 40 hours of the operation being completed, his doctor declared him “brain dead”–wink wink–sooooo legelly he no longer had any rights and could be taken off his ventilator at any time (in 22 states the doctor can remove “brain dead” patients from life support at their discretion). My friend was an organ donor, so the doctor and family agreed to allow him to continue living until they could harvest his organs for donation (since he wouldn’t need them anymore since he was dead…although they were still keeping him alive??? you figure it out)
I thought that the Catholic position was that death occured when your soul leaves your body…not when you are in a deep (possibly irreversible) coma??? But it was explained to me that once “real” death occurs the organs begin decompossing right away and the organs can’t be harvested, so doctors just take them while the patient is still alive…hence the invention of the term “brain death” in the late 60s. The organ donation is actually what kills the donors!!!
Of course if his brain was really dead, he could not have kept his blood pressure up, nor maintained his body temperature, so is “brain death” just another 1984/Brave New World medical term we’ve been sold.
Go figure!!!
