organ transplants

[Fleurina]

I am new here, so if I am posting in the wrong forum, please bear with me.

For some time, I have had concerns about organ transplants particularly those harvested from a person declared to be “brain dead”. It has been suggested recently that the tests for brain death should include establishing whether there is still blood circulation. Currently in Australia at least, tests of blood circulation are not conducted prior to harvesting of organs.

I am concerned that the next of kin of the donor may be pressured at a time when they may not be thinking rationally. A team of surgeons may be waiting for the harvested organ as they have a suitable recipient lined up and ready. This places enormous pressure on all concerned.

If we keep changing the definition of “brain death”, then a patient who is hooked up to life support may have his/her organs harvested by one definition which may later be changed. This seems too arbitrary.

We have a bio ethicist in Melbourne who requires regular dialysis. He qualifies for a kidney transplant, but on moral and ethical grounds, he refuses to have one.

I think this is another example of where medical science is far ahead of our thinking in moral and ethical terms.

[Only_Humean]

@Fleurina

For some time, I have had concerns about organ transplants particularly those harvested from a person declared to be “brain dead”. It has been suggested recently that the tests for brain death should include establishing whether there is still blood circulation. Currently in Australia at least, tests of blood circulation are not conducted prior to harvesting of organs.

Hearts and livers are unsuitable for transplantation after circulation stops. Why do you think blood circulation is relevant to establishing death? Why do you put “brain dead” in quotes?

I am concerned that the next of kin of the donor may be pressured at a time when they may not be thinking rationally. A team of surgeons may be waiting for the harvested organ as they have a suitable recipient lined up and ready. This places enormous pressure on all concerned.

Offering organs is not a rational decision; the emotions involved will always outweigh rationality. Indeed, as a rational decision, it’s a no-brainer: You can use the organs to save lives or you can let them rot in a corpse.

Brain death is not the same as persistent vegetative state, you’re not killing someone you don’t believe is likely to wake up soon, you’re merely switching the machines off someone whose recovery you believe is impossible. To argue from the other side: do you find it ethical that thousands of people who could be saved by a new heart or liver should die just because we have the technology to keep dead bodies pulsing?

I think this is another example of where medical science is far ahead of our thinking in moral and ethical terms.

Whose thinking? Medical science is what it is, there are moral and ethical questions that have been around for thousands of years. There are no “right answers”, as they depend on your individual opinion as to what is good, right, better etc. Even if medical technology remained completely static, medical ethics would change - there is no correct endpoint.