JimG:
I would qualify that to say that the Church considers organ donation after death to be morally permissible as well as a good and charitable act.
But paramedicgirl brings up a good point. When does death occur? Traditionally it has been said to occur when the soul leaves the body. The church hasn’t, to my knowledge, stated any position with respect to the various definitions of death, including brain death.
If indeed, the ventilator is disconnected, and the patient does not breathe and begins to shut down, he is apparently dying. I would think that the ventilator could at that point be reconnected for the purpose of keeping the organs sufficiently alive as to be removed for donation. But one wants to be sure that death has occurred.
In former times, people worried about being inadvertently buried alive. (That was one reason for wake services.) Now, the worry is more that one might be declared dead too soon. I just hope the medics know what they are doing.
There is so much global controversy on this issue among medical professionals, ethicists, lay people, & scientists for a good reason. Traditionally the soul was considered to leave the body when bilogical death occured, that is the cessation of functioning of the cardio-pulmonary system.
Think about this: You are in an accident in a rural area and have suffered severe trauma to your head. You are found with a pulse and shallow respirations, so you are ventilated manually on the way to the local hospital, which maintains life. Your pupils are unequal and do not react to light. You have no motor responses. You are brain dead. In the hospital, the doctors prepare you for rapid transport to a major hospital. No one has signed a death certificate yet, in fact they are maintaining what life you have by a variety of medical procedures.
Once in the major hospital, you are given a variety of tests to determine brain death. You are kept on a ventilator to maintain life during these procedures. The moral question here is has death occurred yet? Did death occur when your brain stopped functioning or is death going to occur when the doctors remove the organs?
I have transported this type of patient before, and they are still considered alive when we reach the hospital. They are still considered alive when we transport them out to a major hospital. No time of death has yet been recorded.
If an organ donor must be dead when the organs are removed, and brain death does not constitute biological death, then there is a moral dilemma. Different countries even have different definitions of brain death. Is it ethical to claim that the removal of vital organs is morally equivalent to “letting nature take its course?” This is not the same as allowing someone to die, as it is the removal of vital organs that kills the patient, not his or her disease or injury.
It’s no wonder there is so much controvery over this issue. Does a brain dead person still possess a soul? That is the million dollar question.
penWindow(‘cr/2278.htm’)
Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of “over-zealous” treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one’s inability to impede it is merely accepted. The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected.
