Posted on 03/25/2015 8:28:58 AM PDT by wagglebee
March 24, 2015 (NationalReview.com) -- I have repeatedly warned about articles published in medical and bioethics journals advocating killing the profoundly disabled or dying for their organs.
The assault on the “dead donor rule” has now filtered down to the popular media. The Atlantic has an article advocating that dying patients be killed for their organs rather than having to actually, you know, die first. From, “As They Lay Dying:”
A more useful ethical standard could involve the idea of “imminent death.” Once a person with a terminal disease reaches a point when only extraordinary measures will delay death; when use (or continued use) of these measures is incompatible with what he considers a reasonable quality of life; and when he therefore decides to stop aggressive care, knowing that this will, in relatively short order, mean the end of his life, we might say that death is “imminent.”
If medical guidelines could be revised to let people facing imminent death donate vital organs under general anesthesia, we could provide patients and families a middle ground—a way of avoiding futile medical care, while also honoring life by preventing the deaths of other critically ill people.
Moreover, healthy people could incorporate this imminent-death standard into advance directives for their end-of-life care. They could determine the conditions under which they would want care withdrawn, and whether they were willing to have it withdrawn in an operating room, under anesthesia, with subsequent removal of their organs.
There’s a name for that: Homicide. Doctors should never be killers, even for a “beneficial” purpose.
Moreover, some who are expected to die under such situations, actually don’t. The unconscious Karen Ann Quinlan is one example. She was expected to die when her respirator was removed. She actually lived another ten years.
The authors bring up an objection worth pondering:
Some may argue that such a model could compromise doctors’ care of critically ill patients. People who distrust the health-care system sometimes make similar arguments, accusing physicians of providing lesser care to those who have signed up to become organ donors.
In practice, though, a donor’s doctors have little connection to those involved with organ recovery, precisely so as to avoid any conflict of interest. We can’t imagine a scenario in which doctors would give a patient inferior care so that her organs could be procured.
I can. In fact, it happens already with medical futility and the push toward health care rationing.
Allowing doctors to kill patients during organ harvesting would be an acute threat, particularly in a medical milieu growing increasingly utilitarian in outlook, cost cutting in approach, and devaluing of the equal worth of all human life.
Knowing that doctors would kill for organs? I can’t think of a better way to sow distrust for the healthcare system generally, and organ transplant medicine specifically.
#verybadidea
And then Obama's death panels could proceed to define "imminent death" however they choose.
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OK,so I’m dying in the hospital of a terminal disease.Is there some poison that I could ingest at the last moment that would render my organs useless?
I am currently listed as an organ donor with my state’s DMV. That would change if the law changed to allow someone to decide I had lived long enough. Only God gets to make that decision. If that change in the law came about, I would reverse my declaration. Also, if I knew I would be killed so that my organs could be harvested, I would probably think of some way to ensure my body was too well decomposed after death to make that possible.
Why not initiate a here-and-now trial program with the editorial staff of the Atlantic as donors?
The science fiction author Larry Niven extrapolated from today’s blood transfusions and organ transplants to a future where longevity is attained by advanced transplant technology. This created such a demand that the society had the death penalty for many, many things (income tax evasion, excess jaywalking) to meet the needs of the 250 year olds.
I can see that happening, once people have the choice of living another 80 years.
I’m also reminded that The Holocaust began as a medical program administered by doctors.
The key here is to state to their face:
“oh, So you want a Master Race?”
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I would never agree to donate my organs, or allow anyone to harvest the organs of a loved one for this very reason.
As a Christian in ethics and a Lockean in politics, I would strongly oppose any killing for the sake of harvesting body parts.
OTOH, as a sinful man and a church organist, I would be strongly tempted to do away with this one person if the result were that I could have her pipe organ...
This might be the story that stopped me from reading any more Sci-Fi. The hero is shown escaping out of his cell and rampaging down the corridors, breaking tall glass columns of fluids containing organs. The hero knows he is going to die and figures he'll do as much damage as possible to The System. I remember the end, when Niven reveals the guy was in prison because the death penalty was lowered to the extremes you mention.
I used to be an avid reader of this genre, but it seemed that right after I read this story (ca late '60s), a news article came out reporting that China was now starting to use organs from executed criminals. That did it for me - too much Sci-Fi I had read was coming true and the stories had to reach much further and went out of my area of interest.
If we took the organs from death row inmates as their restitution, the program would fund itself as states would save millions housing the scum.
Studies show liberals have the best organs. Do your organ shopping in leftist enclaves.
“If we took the organs from death row inmates as their restitution,”
Remember the Arkansas prison contaminated blood scandal? Not the best source for transplant material or blood. hep-C, AIDS, VD...
skin and bone are taken and sold.
I am not listed as an organ donor for that exact reason. Progressives will not wait for the law to change before they start harvesting organs. They’ll just attempt to cover it up.
Anyway, I’m old enough that I doubt my organs would outlive me by very much, regardless of the casue of death :)
Funny how they don’t talk about using organs from executed prisoners.
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