MarysLittleFlower Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 I just read an interview with a Catholic doctor who said that using organs from deceased patients is useless so they changed the definition of death to be "brain death" to be able to use organs from living patients. Brain dead patients are actually alive and there were cases "brain dead" women even delivered healthy babies. But in hospitals they call them "corpses". Very troubling... What I'm wondering about is how in the CCC it says organ donation from dead patients is allowed but its wrong to kill people for this. I'm confused because from what the doctor said they don't use truly deceased patients. So what is the Catechism talking about? Is it describing some hypothetical moral scenario? Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puellapaschalis Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 This is the reason I am not an organ donor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarysLittleFlower Posted April 21, 2015 Author Share Posted April 21, 2015 This is the reason I am not an organ donor. Same Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maggyie Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 (edited) Pope Benedict is an organ donor. Can't get more traditional or pro-life than him. Most brain dead people if removed from ventilation, artificial temperature support, medication including artificial hormones that fool the body into continuing necessary processes like kidney function long after the brain is no longer prompting... These individuals will die without the (from a moral perspective, unnecessary but permissible) support. As of now I am not an organ donor either, but there are a lot of misconceptions about true brain death. Someone who is truly brain dead is no more alive than the computer running the ventilator. They are not actually breathing, rather the machine imitates the respiratory process to the point the body responds as though it were actually breathing. The person never actually breathes. Some places are pretty careless about verifying brain death though... Edited April 22, 2015 by Maggyie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ice_nine Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 that's pretty scary (about not carefully verifying brain death), I'm an organ donor but maybe I'll change that! Unless you want a kidney. I can give you one of those. Or maybe a lung, but I like taking real deep breaths so you'll need to at least buy me something real nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarysLittleFlower Posted April 22, 2015 Author Share Posted April 22, 2015 (edited) Pope Benedict is an organ donor. Can't get more traditional or pro-life than him. Most brain dead people if removed from ventilation, artificial temperature support, medication including artificial hormones that fool the body into continuing necessary processes like kidney function long after the brain is no longer prompting... These individuals will die without the (from a moral perspective, unnecessary but permissible) support. As of now I am not an organ donor either, but there are a lot of misconceptions about true brain death. Someone who is truly brain dead is no more alive than the computer running the ventilator. They are not actually breathing, rather the machine imitates the respiratory process to the point the body responds as though it were actually breathing. The person never actually breathes. Some places are pretty careless about verifying brain death though... I'm unsure about the statistics on this though... About most brain dead people. And how do you tell. Since there were people in comas who woke up and said they were fully aware, brain dead patients who showed signs of life before the surgery for organs, brain dead patients who delivered babies... It seems like the example you mentioned is not a majority? I don't know but the definition of brain death is not the cessation of most functions. There have been times the machines couldn't measure certain brain activity that was going on. I think they should really measure death in the old fashioned way - if the heart is beating you're alive. If it stopped irreversibly and the body shows signs of death that's something no one can argue with... I wouldn't ever trust some machine to tell me if someone is alive or dead... Edited April 22, 2015 by MarysLittleFlower Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maggyie Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 I'm unsure about the statistics on this though... About most brain dead people. And how do you tell. Since there were people in comas who woke up and said they were fully aware, brain dead patients who showed signs of life before the surgery for organs, brain dead patients who delivered babies... It seems like the example you mentioned is not a majority? I don't know but the definition of brain death is not the cessation of most functions. There have been times the machines couldn't measure certain brain activity that was going on. I think they should really measure death in the old fashioned way - if the heart is beating you're alive. If it stopped irreversibly and the body shows signs of death that's something no one can argue with... I wouldn't ever trust some machine to tell me if someone is alive or dead... Well that's the thing, someone connected to a heart-lung machine for instance doesn't have a beating heart. They have a computer that has taken over those functions. It's the equivalent of getting constant CPR. When you give someone CPR you are not "helping their heart beat" you are helping their body fake it till it makes it. The woman "giving birth" is a great example, in this case doctors used her body as a host for the developing child. With the proper use of hormones the female body can be made to support a pregnancy and then induced to "give birth." In fact this was an artificial process caused by the doctors - the woman is not just unconscious, she literally has no "life" besides the appearance of life provided by the machines. You could theoretically even impregnate a brain dead woman through IVF and take her through the whole pregnancy. The ultimate artificial womb. being connected to such machines in the first place is therefore quite frightening and dehumanizing in its implications. I'm not sure for myself what I would want but it's definitely something to think about. there are various ways to accurately verify brain death, we know how to do it. The problem arises when medical staff who are aware of the seriousness of the injury make assumptions about brain death or don't conduct all the tests or pay close attention. Someone can have severe brain trauma and not be brain dead of course. But in order to be sure, time has to pass and patience used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatherineM Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 I grew up with a mom who only had one kidney and I knew there might come a time when I had to donate one of mine to her. She ended up living 73 years with just one. It grew to twice normal size. So yes, I'm an organ donor. I think it is a very Christian act. I truly believe that the argument about not wanting to be one in the off chance that a mistake would be made about me really being dead is a bit like the argument about vaccinations causing autism. If a doctor made a mistake, and there are actually several doctors that would be involved in the decision, I would still be happy that what limited life I had left could be sacrificed to save other lives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basilisa Marie Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 Doctors do everything they can to save you, they aren't chomping at the bit to harvest your organs. Do you really think the doctors really want the person they're working on in front of them to die just so that some anonymous person can be saved? It's an entirely different team of people who prepares organs for transplant. Articles like the one you're taking about don't understand what brain death means. It means you're dead, there is no chance of saving you. Yes, once you die there's a limited time frame where organs are still viable and they have to work quickly. Organ donation is a great pro life choice to make. After death you can give sight to the blind, donate your heart, liver, lungs (two lungs, two people), pancreas, your skin could help a burn victim, you can ultimately save up to eight lives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basilisa Marie Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 The thing is, death isn't always an instantaneous thing. Your body shuts down... is almost like the difference between pulling the plug on a computer and when we manually tell it to shut down. When your body is shutting down like the latter computer, doctors can sometimes pause the process with machines, get in there and get the organs. The process isn't reversible, no one can do anything too stop it. But we can do near miraculous things with bodies that are suspended between life and our common conception of total death. The Church is against killing people for their organs, but recognises that after someone has died we can artificially maintain their bodies in order to serve a good, like bringing a baby to fuller term or organ donation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winchester Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 It should be legal to sell organs. It's already legal to sell the installation of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Wednesday Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarysLittleFlower Posted April 25, 2015 Author Share Posted April 25, 2015 I'm actually really confused about the Church teaching now... can someone inform me? I mean - removing hydration is wrong and hydration is seen as "ordinary" not "extraordinary" means though the person would die without it. So how does that compare to something like a machine that helps to breathe? I keep reading different things everywhere... maybe I should ask my priest.. I tend to think it's good to just let "brain dead" people die naturally because God decides when we die Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Wednesday Posted April 26, 2015 Share Posted April 26, 2015 A lot of end of life issues are best looked at on a case by case basis. Here's some reading I found on the matter. (Catechism passage below) https://www.ewtn.com/morals/end-of-life.htm 2278. 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. When my grandmother passed away, she had been in an accident and she was on a breathing machine but she wasn't even trying to live on her own. She was pretty much done, and was not expected to survive. They called in a priest and he gave her the last rites and prayed over her as they took her off the machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sister Marie Posted April 27, 2015 Share Posted April 27, 2015 If you were in need of a kidney, heart, lung, or liver would you accept a transplant? I bet you would because the suffering involved in dialysis or a constant feeling of suffocation and the constant fear of the moment when your heart will stop for good would be enough to convince most to accept the gift of life from another. For some people, this is their only hope and the gift of ones body for the life of another is the closest you can get to living the love with which Christ offered his body for us. http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/2000/jul-sep/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20000829_transplants.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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