Posted on 03/04/2010 3:35:02 PM PST by wagglebee
PEORIA, Illinois, March 4, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An Illinois senator is pushing legislation that would allow doctors to harvest organs from citizens who have not explicitly given consent for the procedure.
The Journal Star reported Monday that a hearing was scheduled this week for Sen. Dale Risinger's bill that would establish a "presumed consent" policy governing organ donation for individuals 18 and older.
"This is an important first step to getting a law in Illinois that helps us have more organ donors," said Risinger, a Republican. Risinger said he was open to public input suggesting revisions to the bill, and that it was not "in its final form."
Under the proposed legislation, individuals who wish to avoid donating their organs would have to explicitly opt-out of donating their organs prior to becoming incapacitated. If passed, the law would be the first of its kind in America.
Stephen Drake of the anti-euthanasia group Not Dead Yet pointed out the grave implications of such a bill, given the flexibility of the definition of brain death, which can vary from hospital to hospital.
Vital organs such as the heart become unusable after an extended period of complete cessation of bodily functions. Therefore, "brain death" is used as a parameter to determine when an individual is extremely unlikely to recover, even as functions such as the heartbeat continue, so that usable organs may be removed.
But the flexibility of that definition has raised considerable controversy.
"Most people assume that since the state they live in considers them a corpse if they're declared 'brain dead,' then the state also imposes some sort of uniform standards regarding how that determination should be made," wrote Drake.
"That's a comforting thought, but it's not the reality." Drake pointed to a 2008 article in the medical journal Neurology that discovered "wide disparities" in hospitals' determinations of brain death.
Drake also pointed to the well-known case of Zack Dunlap, who "miraculously" became responsive after being diagnosed brain dead, but minutes before his organs were to be harvested.
Prominent bioethics commentator Wesley Smith predicted that the legislation would only serve to breed mistrust between an already-strained doctor-patient relationship.
"Think about it: We already have bioethicists advocating for futile care theory, that is the right to refuse wanted life sustaining treatment based on quality of life judgmentalism, resource allocation, or both," wrote Smith on his Secondhand Smoke blog.
"Add in the motive for taking organs to this volatile field – and wary families will become even less trusting, and medical issues will become even more likely to end up in court," he continued. "Square that if we ever enact explicit health care rationing, or redefine death to include a diagnosis of PVS – as many luminaries in the transplant field advocate.
"If doctors ever start taking organs without explicit permission – even if allowed by law – there will be hell to pay."
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Doctor Says about "Brain Dead" Man Saved from Organ Harvesting - "Brain Death is Never Really Death"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/08032709.html
Shock: Oxford Neonatologist Says Time Has Come to Consider “Mandatory Organ Donation”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/oct/08102413.html
New England Journal of Medicine: 'Brain Death' is not Death
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08081406.html
Doctors Who Almost Dissected Living Patient Confess Ignorance about Actual Moment of Death
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jun/08061308.html
Melbourne Doctor: Most Donors Still Alive when Organs are Removed
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/oct/08102105.html
Denver Coroner Rules "Homicide" in Organ-Donor Case
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/oct/04101208.html
Russian Surgeons Removing Organs Saying Patients Almost Dead Anyway
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/sep/03090906.html
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Pretty soon you will abducted off the street...
The problem isn’t that there is a shortage. There isn’t. The problem is government rationing of transplants using lists.
Let people pay $1000 for an organ or let insurance pay it or government for all I care. You will have no shortage but the government doesn’t want that.
Ping
I have designated myself an organ donor on my driver’s license for twenty-five or more years. But stories like this and other things that are just in the air have led me to decide to remove the organ donor designation from my license at the next renewal later this year.
So your body is presumed to belong to the gummint unless you have indicated otherwise?
Sickening.
Ouch! What’s a diagnosis of PVS entail?
There is no personal ownership of anything in The New People’s Paradise. Not even your body.
**There is no personal ownership of anything in The New People’s Paradise. Not even your body.***
I predicted this would eventually be part of Obamacare - but this damned fool, Risinger is a Republican.
The rationale will be that once you are dead - you are no longer competent to make decisions.
Dust to dust!!
![](<"http://mtglair.de/img/python/Live_Organ_Transplants.jpg"){kind=spacer}
Personal rights are so passé.
I’ll never advise my children to do what I did many years ago and register in the marrow donor program. Who knows what might happen if you happen to match a drunken congressman who needs a liver?
It just gets worse and worse.
They’re trying to make up for the loss of donations from people who are discovering the organs are harvested while they’re still using them. I think most people would want to donate their organs, when they’re done using them, and not a moment sooner.
OBAMANOMICS—TRICKLE DOWN DESTRUCTION of the economy
Bambi doesn’t keep his promises...so buyer beware!
SET THEIR LOCAL AND DC LINES ON FIRE!
PLEASE ASK THEM TO REPEAL THE BIG NEW FEES in TRICARE for Life, the retired Military over 65 secondary health ins. which they passed in a DOD bill. They promised our Military these benefits, and our Military have earned them.
Sen Scott Brown’s number is 202-224-4543
Capitol Hill switchboard is 202-224-3121
Lots of local demwit phone numbers on this thread
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2408217/posts
Rename, repackage, rewrite it a tad smaller, and sell another pig in a poke. NO COLAs for granny, retired Military or retired fed employees. BIG NEW fees for Tricare for Life retired over 65 Military’s secondary health ins. (DOD bill already passed, delayed but goes into effect 2011 NEEDS TO BE REPEALED!
OBAMA’s WAR ON SENIORS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2433867/posts/
New Dem mantra: Woof, woof eat dog food granny....ala let them eat cake.
Obama says slight fix will extend Social Security, http://townhall.com/news/us/2010/02/19/obama_says_slight_fix_will_extend_social_security
Health Care Rationing for Seniors Another Problem in New Obama Plan http://www.lifenews.com/bio3058.html
Medicare tax may apply to investment income (ObamaCare tax hike)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2460988/posts
Obama: No reduced Medicare benefits in health care reform
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/28/obama.health.care/index.html
Will healthcare reform mean cuts in Medicare for seniors?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2009/1017/will-healthcare-reform-mean-cuts-in-medicare-for-seniors
Health Reform’s Hidden Victims Young people and seniors would pay a high price for ObamaCare.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203517304574306303720472842.html
SOCIALIZED MED THREAD http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2463709/posts
MILITARY & Retired MILITARY
TRI CARE FOR LIFE This from a google search:
http://economicspolitics.blogspot.com/2009/05/tricare-for-life-is-obama-trying-to.html
This option would help reduce the costs of TFL, as well as costs for Medicare, by introducing minimum out-of pocket requirements for beneficiaries. Under this option, TFL would not cover any of the first $525 of an enrollee’s cost-sharing liabilities for calendar year 2011 and would limit coverage to 50 percent of the next $4,725 in Medicare cost sharing that the beneficiary incurred. (Because all further cost sharing would be covered by TFL, enrollees could not pay more than $2,888 in cost sharing in that year.) http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9925/12-18-HealthOptions.pdf
Bill Would Restrict Veterans’ Health Care Options 11/06/09
Buyer and McKeon Offer Amendments to Protect Veterans and TRICARE Beneficiaries
Congress plans to block Tricare fee increases
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/10/military_tricarefees_blocked_100709w
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/10/military_tricarefees_blocked_100709w/
By Rick Maze - Staff writer, Oct 7, 2009
Tricare fee increases imposed last week by the Defense Department will be repealed by a provision of the compromise 2010 defense authorization bill unveiled Wednesday by House and Senate negotiators.
The fee increases were announced on Sept. 30 and took effect on Oct. 1, but the defense bill, HR 2647, includes a provision barring any fee increases until the start of fiscal 2011.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Bill Matz, president of the National Association for Uniformed Services, said the announcement of fee increases was shocking considering that the Obama administration promised earlier this year to hold off on any new fee Tricare fee increases until fiscal 2011.
“President Obama and DoD assured NAUS and the entire military family earlier this year that there would rightly be no increases in any Tricare fees” in fiscal 2010, Matz said. “We took them at their word, and I can’t believe that a co-pay increase like this was allowed to go forward,” he added.
Isn't that kind of like stealing? Of course, your not around to file a complaint
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