Don’t you just hate that!  You are getting ready to ‘harvest’ someone’s organs and they sit up and start chatting about horseback riding again.  It is SO embarrassing.

I guess when you profess no belief in God there is always the temptation to submit your name for His.

The Catholic Church does not teach that brain dead equals dead.  Yes, it is allowed to take someone off a respirator, but afterwards, if they are still alive, but their brain is “dead” you cannot harvest the organs. This is why Catholics cannot donate hearts/other major organs—the donor still needs to be alive, i.e. heart beating, for them to take these organs, so the medical community has defined brain dead as “dead.”  Definitely not part of Church teaching. Yet, the first priest quoted in this article erroneously asserts that this is allowed.

This explains my immediate weeping at the word “harvesting” in reference to my 17-yer-old nephew’s organs. It was a visceral response to how wrong that sounded in reference to a human being, especially a loved one. Yes, I was glad for those who benefitted from his organs, but it still feels wrong. God bless all doctors that they realize the grave responsibility they have been given along with their gifts.

I am extremely skeptical about this article.  As a RN who has worked with several donor cases - both with brain death and donation after circulatory death, it is never protocol that the organs are harvested days after being taken off a ventilator.  With brain death, you have to undergo an apnea test, which MUST be positive, because if you still have any drive to breathe, then your brain, by definition, is NOT dead.  Very possibly extremely injured, but not dead.  Even for donors with DCD, you have 90 mins, tops (at least in the US) to die after the breathing tube is taken out before there is too much damage to organs from extremely low blood pressure, lack of oxygen, etc.  So for this Danish girl to be declared brain dead, then waiting DAYS for her to die is impossible if her brain truly had died (her brainstem, the part the controls your drive to breathe, must also be dead for the criteria to fit).  And @Ellen, you might consider reading the Charter for Health Care Workers, from the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers published in 1995.  Catholics can and do donate major organs in the presence of both brain death and DCD.

“I have no doubt that the attitude of Danish doctors to life and death has undergone a change for the worse in the last decades partly due to the legalization of abortion on demand in 1973,” said Riis. “Too many modern doctors understand themselves as a sort of mechanic repairing machines rather than caring for other human beings.”

And some wonder what’s really going on in the US… auto mechanic, surgeon - what’s the difference?  In, up, fixed, out - sorry we left the oil cap off, we’ll try to remember to use properly autoclaved medical tools during your surgery.

I am totally against organ donation because of the frailty of human nature even in the men and women “in white”. Frailty = greed, pride, avarice, etc.

Organ donation saves lives but taking a life to save another is not part of the Catholic teaching. How do we learn how to protect ourselves from being killed for our organs or do we need to stop donating them.

In my last year of nursing school in a so called “Catholic” country in Europe, I was doing my training period in the OR and ICU. One day we got a child who was in a car accident together with his parents who died in the accident. He was so called “brain dead” and on a respirator.  The doctors asked his grandparents permission to harvest his kidneys but they refused. That same day we went to the OR with the child. I had to manually ventilate him while going to the OR. There the surgeon removed the child’s kidneys and then I saw the OR RN suctioning an enormous amount of blood. I looked at him and asked very quietly what happened. He said that the surgeon cut the abdominal aorta. So the child bled to death after the kidneys removal. Then he sewed him up, we had to take him back to ICU while “pro forma"ventilating him and put him back on the machines. Hours later they called his grandparents that he died. They never found out about the kidneys removal. I must say that this Nursing school and the Hospitals it is connected to was and still is very freemason. This is the first time I get this off my chest, because of course you could absolutely NOT talk about it. This was a terrible shock for me, I had no clue that things like that happened, in the meantime I know better because I’ve seen a lot.

Ellen is on target.  The teaching of the Church is not that brain dead is dead, but that dead is dead.  Whether brain death is true death generally, or whether a patient is dead in any given case, is not a question of moral theology, but a question of fact and medical science, as recognized by Pope John Paul when he spoke on the matter.
.
But even aside from the brain death issue, there is the matter of informed consent—the fundamental moral obligation to tell potential donors of all of the information they need to make a free decision, including the fact that hearts are not harvested after they stop beating on their own (which would be too late for a viable transplant), but are instead harvested when the heart is still beating (and thus alive), the doctors temporarily stopping it themselves.  But most potential donors are not told this because, if they were, they would be horrified and refuse to donate.

The definition of death used to be when the heart stopped beating.  Conveniently (for the medical profession) , the definition was changed to “brain death” when organ transplanting became more successful and feasible because once the heart stopped beating and blood was no longer being pumped through the body the time period for a viable organ transplant was shortened.  In other words, it seems that once a person is really dead their organs are no longer useful.  This should give us all cause for concern. 

Personally, I will NEVER sign an organ donation form, nor would I ever consent to have a family members organs removed before I have absolute, undeniable proof that he or she is deceased.  The medical profession today cannot be trusted.  How many times do we have to read stories like this?

The comments from Ellen and Kayla convinced me to write.  There is an area of weakness in what the Catholic Church officially teaches on this EOL matter. True, both brain and body death must be verified for a person to be dead with “moral certainty.”  This is the conservative position (William May is my authority).  Now what Pope Benedict XVI has said on this matter, presupposes a rigorously enforced protocol for determining 100% death of the brain—a 100% dead brain that will not support bodily life.

(http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/no-moral-certainty-that-brain-death-is-really-death-prominent-catholic-ethi)

The problem is that a protocol for moral certainty is not universally available, nor is it cheap.  So what routinely happens is that doctors cut corners and plead a case for misguided compassion, family members throw in the towel (maybe with altruistic motives, maybe not) and the still very much alive person is cut open for organ harvesting, effectively killing him/her.  This is a travesty and intrinsically evil.
As a Church we must take the hard stand on this key BOTH/AND:  Verifiable brain stem death, and complete heart failure (IMHO 15 minutes minimum, for I know one priest whose heart stopped for 15 minutes while he on the operating table, and he is still offering Holy Mass).

The problem is that a protocol for certainity is not univerally available, nor is it cheap.  So what routinely happens is that doctors cut corners and plead a case for misguided compassion, family members throw in the towel (maybe with altruistic motives, maybe not) and the still very much alive person is cut open for organ harvesting, effectively killing him/her.  This is a travesty and gravely evil.

As a Church we must take the hard stand on this key BOTH/AND:  Verifiable brain stem death, and complete heart failure (IMHO 15 minutes minimum, for I know a priest who was dead for 10 minutes and he is still offering Mass).

Sorry Charlie, but organ donation and third party life extention are not part of the basic equation.

“Bandits in white coats?”
More like murderers.

AMEN ELLEN WELL SAID..

IF GOD WANTS TO TAKE OUR LIFE HE WILL… IF WE ARE IN A COMA IT IS FOR A REASON, LET GOD WORK HIS MIRACLES TO PROVE TO THE WORLD HE DOES EXIST AND TO CONVERT THE ATHEIST AND THE UNBELIEVERS OF MIRACLES…

The Dutch are currently the only European country that encourages their citizens to kill themselves and offer their organs for “harvesting” via mobile euthanasia units…I’m not kidding, they will actually come to your house and kill you for free. Culture of death coming to a state near you (I live in Washington where some here brag about our legal assisted suicide laws). Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on us!

The RC provides an uncertain sound in m,any things, but determining when one has irreversibly lost all ability to function, and heart and breathing have definitively ceased, is not necessarily certain.  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/dad-rescues-brain-dead-son-from-doctors-wishing-to-harvest-his-organs-boy-r

Below is what the aforementioned CHARTER FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS
Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance states:

Death is seen and experienced by people as a decomposition, a dissolution, a rupture.[252] “It comes when the spiritual principle which governs the unity of the individual is no longer able to exercise its functions on and in the organism and the elements of the latter, left to themselves, dissociate.

But “the moment of this rupture is not directly perceptible, and the problem is to identify the signs.”[254] To ascertain and interpret these signs is not a matter for faith or morals but for medical science: “it is for the doctor…to give a clear, precise definition of death and of the moment of death.”[255] “

129. With regard to this determination, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences has made an authoritative contribution. First with regard to the <biomedical definition of death>: “a person is dead when he has irreversibly lost all ability to integrate and coordinate the physical and mental functions of the body.”

Second, with regard to the precise moment of death: “death comes when: a) the spontaneous functions of the heart and breathing have definitively ceased, or b) the irreversible arrest of all brain activity.” In reality “brain death is the true criterion of death, although the definitive arrest of cardio-respiratory activity very quickly leads to brain death.”[257] 
————

The main thing is that we are ready to die, not be trusting in a form of conversion, but by realizing that we are damned guilty sinners and destitute of any merit that would gain us escape from Hell and acceptance into Heaven, and thus personally repentant out of a contrite heart and trust in the risen Lord Jesus to save us by His sinless shed blood. And which is shown in baptism and following Him.  Thanks be to God.

People who are pro-life have been maligned and scorned for years and years. However, society was warned about over and over again about the consequences of devaluing life and this was one of them. Human beings have become like commodity, vulnerable to exploitation. There are medical schools now who will not even admit pro-life students. Imagine, having only doctors who agree with abortion and euthanasia. Is that the kind of doctor you would wish to have as your health provider?

“There never used to be debate over when someone was dead. If there was no heartbeat, no breathing, and no response to stimulation or resuscitation for a sufficient period of time, it was clear that the death of the person had occurred. However, in 1968, that all changed.

In 1968, the notion of “brain death” was formulated and published by an ad hoc committee of the Harvard Medical School.(1) Two years later in 1970, Kansas became the first state to give legal status to the notion of “brain death.”(2) Over the past three decades, the critically important criterion for declaring death switched from the absence of circulation and breathing to cessation of functioning of the brain.”

American Life League has some great articles regarding brain death.  http://www.all.org/nav/index/heading/OQ/cat/MjA2/id/MjU4Mg/

A year ago, Summer of 2011, in Costa Mesa, California, a similar thing happened to our friend’s daughter.  Our friend’s daughter, Kat, while crossing the street, with a friend, was struck by a drunk driver.  She was rushed to a nearby trauma center where doctors informed her parents that she was brain dead.  Unbeknownst to Kat’s parents, representatives from a organ donation company were in the waiting room approaching family members trying to encourage them to persuade Kat’s parents to donate her organs.  Kat’s parents pleaded with three different doctors at this hospital to perform a craniectomy, an operation which temporarily removes a portion of the skull so that the brain is allowed to swell, in the hope of minimizing brain damage.  All three doctors refused to perform the operation.  Precious hours went by with Kat’s condition worsening because of the brain swelling.  Kat’s parents were finally able to persuade a surgeon from a nearby Catholic hospital to agree to come and operate, which he then did.  Kat’s operation was a success, however, Kat sustained extensive brain damage, first from the initial trauma and second, but most importantly, from the swelling which caused her brain to be pressed against her skull and bleeding.  Many people, incuding doctors, who are familiar with Kat’s ordeal believe Kat suffered more damage to her brain, than the initial trauma, as a result of the first three doctors refusal to operate on her, insisting that she was brain dead.  After several months in the hospital, Kat was discharged and is at home.  Kat is breathing on her own and is starting to swallow liquids on her own.  Kat requires constant round the clock care but her condition is improving thanks to prayers and the love and support of her family.

People are taken off the respirator exactly the time of recovery that they need it the most. The criteria is wrong.
There is a hurry to get the organs.

Years ago, after watching the movie, COMA,  I took myself of the driver’s license registry!  I refused to believe that for one minute we would not harvest a person’s organs for profit of another person at the death of another.  It was of course a Sci-FI movie, but there are many of them that do make us think.
My ONLY reason at the time, as a mother, was to have my Pancreas donated for my son, who was a young diabetic since the age of two. It was to be my gift to him if I ever died before him and that was the only reason I did it, not for anyone else.
I have never put my name on the registry since and never will. As a Caholic, I believe that GOD is still the one who gives and takes life.

Eerily analogous to the Burke and Hare “bodysnatcher” murders in 1828. Burke and Hare were two Irish immigrants who provided bodies for dissection to Dr. Robert Knox. In the words of one blogger, “The first cadaver William Burke and William Hare sold had died of natural causes in Hare’s lodging house. It was the ease with which the body could be sold, and the high price they could realize for cadavers—between £8 to £10—that, Burke said, ‘made them try the murdering for subjects.’ From January through October 1828, they killed three men, twelve women, and one child.” Why is there so much haste from some medical personnel and Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs) to persuade patients’ families to donate organs? Perhaps profit (especially for the OPOs, some of which make millions of dollars) has something to do with it?

Needless to say this conversation is extremely important—more so now with HHS looming.  I have been praying that God direct me to do His will in this work: to help strengthen hearts for this coming assault on humankind.

I have come to understand a five-point plan for taking this bootcamp to the masses.  It involves the words: autonomy, duality, hedonism, compassion, and utility.

You can get a primer on this at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v4aoKncO-M&feature=youtube_gdata

Leave a comment there to contact me.

God Bless the USA!

I know there’s pressure to donate organs-I’ve experienced it in the hospital-but exactly how does profit come into the picture? I think there’s more motive than altruism involved even when it’s legal.

How you will harvest a human organ if the patient is dead? It follows that for harvest, a healthy human organ, the patient must be alive or the organ certainly will not be worthiest to be implant it. The definition of death is totally misunderstood. There is no consensus in the definition of death. MD’s are out touch with the issue of real death. the best thing to do is never be volunteer in giving the organs away because you don’t know exactly when you going to be death.

If it didn’t have a horrifying element, one could almost be amused by the apparent ‘duck-and-mislead’ comment from the hospital, where they are quoted as saying, “The hospital has apologized for asking permission of her parents prematurely, while insisting that there was no chance that organ harvesting would have proceeded while the girl was still breathing.”  Of course, the absurdly missing part is how the hospital could *ensure* that the girl is not “still breathing”. The use of respiratory depressant drugs and other medically orchestrated means (like inappropriate/unsafe extubation) are part of the true, horrifying picture of how some of these organ donor patients actually ‘stop breathing’.

Please get the word out… In the USA euthanasia is nowcommonplace under different surreptitious palliative “protocols.”  We have to bring this conversation to light and keep it there for the duration. One way is to propose that all Catholics/Christians of good will read the online book Lord of the World.  It is available in all formats to include audio book. Go to http://www.authorama.com/lord-of-the-world-1.html  Trus.t me, once you get through the Prologue, you won’t be able to put it down.  Oh and don’t slip to the end…It’s amazing how this was penned in 1907.

The November 21st comment above from Rodolfo is correctly illuminating in the description of how an organ (heart/liver/kidney), in order to even be functional after transplantation, would have had to come from someone who was either still alive when their organ was cut out of their body or was literally just seconds/minute(s) before still breathing and therefore suspiciously ‘made dead’... or allowed to die at precisely the right moment during the time specifically booked in the operating room. Surgeons and support staff can’t just wait around at patients’ bedsides all day or day after day waiting for a really natural, unavoidable death. Rather, they have to carefully TIME their time in the operating room. Eminent physician, Dr. Paul A. Byrne (who is also past President of the Catholic Medical Association) has compellingly taught these medical facts for years. I remember him telling me the clear and simple analogy of how you have only a few minutes to save someone after drowning—because otherwise their organs are permanently rendered non-functional if the person had stopped breathing for more than a mere few minutes. Everybody knows that you’ve only got a few minutes at most to save a drowned person (save their vital organs). But the medical reality is that it generally takes HOURS, not minutes, to prepare and implement the extraction of organs from a ‘donor’. So do the math: In order to harvest an organ in a manner that will avoid rendering it useless, that patient would likely have to be MADE dead (stop breathing) at the precisely enough needed time. Because otherwise, if you wait for them to stop breathing on their own, their organs would have become completely useless for transplantation by the time you rushed the patient to the operating room or did all the time-consuming, careful cutting necessary to extract the organs. They have to still be breathing right up to mere seconds/minute(s) before the organ is cut out of their body. Isn’t that deeply disturbing? When it was explained to me this way, it was not only disturbing but I felt embarrassed by having been previously so naive about organ transplantation. It becomes so obvious when you do the simple math of timing requirements.

It’s all about making more money. Sad!

It is important to note that just as doctors have become mechanical about organ donation so has the organ donation consumer. Organ donation is a style of death, a taste a predilection. It is one way to deal with a brain injured person in the family. In 99.9% of cases, the deal between the patient’s family and the hospital goes by without a hitch and no more is said. The family gets its dramatic style of “seeing to the problem” that all the celebrities are talking about, and the transplant industry gets its organs. This process is not one-sided. It works because there are people who love doctors, medical procedures, hospitals, candlelight vigils and nice words to chant to themselves. These families, after donation become spellbound with the sense that they did the right thing and are in the hallowed company of similar families. The rest of us have to stop talking about breathing tubes, when is a person dead/not dead etc and just accept that no matter what, organ donation has its followers. It has become more than it is. It’s a fetish and a brand label. The time has come for the marketplace to call organ donation “Organasia” (intentional choice of dying through organ removal) and medicate the donor against pain. Get this truth out in the open, see to the donor’s pain and let people do what they like.

@ wendy winthrop: But Wendy, do you feel certain that society should really just “let people do what they like” even if there are serious moral/spiritual ramifications?  Or looking at it in another way, should society really just “let people do what they like” even while there is still widespread false information that the donators/recipients are unfairly relying upon to make their life-or-death decisions??  You see, even though *you* may have enough accurate knowledge to categorize organ donation clearly as an actual “style OF death”, donors are currently misunderstanding that their organ donation is only AFTER real death—rather than a form OF death as you aptly put it. Maybe what these people would really “like” would be different for them if they actually knew the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Maybe the donor would have chosen to NOT donate their organs (or the recipient to NOT receive the organs) if they knew that the organs actually had to be cut out of a living body or otherwise that possibly the donor had to be ‘made dead’ intentionally by medical orchestration mere moments before their organs were cut out.

Life on earth continues until true death. Every organ for transplantation is taken from a living person with a beating heart, circulation and respiration. When the heart is taken for transplantation, the donor is killed.  “Brain death” was concocted to get beating hearts and other vital organs for transplantation. A living body becomes a dead body by going through true death; what then remains is a cadaver. A vital organ that occurs singly, e.g., the heart, cannot be transplanted from a cadaver. Donors must be living. Much information about these significant matters of life and death is kept from the public. What you do not know can kill you. Lack of informed consent is no consent. How much information were you given at the license bureau before you answered the question, “Do you wish to be an organ donor?”

Dr Byrne, the issue is becoming less and less about the donor being dead or not. At first, people were also a little taken aback by abortion killing live entities but now society is desensitized, and proud of it. Like the Spartans were. Statistically there is a full 1/3 of families of head injured, as well as would-be donors at the license bureau, who will go for organ donation EVEN if it hurts, tortures and kills. It is a fetish to them, and has psychological roots in what is called Munchausens syndrome or Munchausens syndrome by proxy. It is a yen or predilection for mutilation and subjective attention. It is time to launch the organ donation procedure or culture as Organasia and at least mitigate this blood sport with analgesics. They have freezing spray at hockey games. Why not for organ removals?

I disagree with Ms. Winthrop. I can’t even see any basis for her apparently presumptive claim that “the issue is becoming less and less about the donor being dead or not”. I mean, look, Ms. Winthrop, at the article above on which you are commenting! How can you possibly in this context, especially on this page of highly relevant news, make such a claim? The question of whether or not “brain death” is even real death is becoming bigger, not smaller, Ms. Winthrop. That is despite the wishes of some who would prefer that such aspect of the issue becomes diminished in scope of discussion or importance. Their dismissive wishes are not coming to fruition. And you are still not addressing the simple and extensive reality that: many or most people who are making decisions about organ donation don’t even know understand some very fundamental (and shocking) truths about the process and implications. I concur with Dr. Byrne, and highlight his legally (and morally) correct viewpoint that “lack of informed consent is no consent”. I suggest that the issue, as demonstrated in the very article above, will become bigger, not smaller.

This topic is very upsetting yes, and what to do? I want to add to my last post that I am totally horrified by this deceit called the gift of life. What an awful pun! It’s the donor’s life given, not the recipient’s life received. I feel that as we try to make a 360 degree turn from one extreme to the other there is just too much suffering in the time it takes to get us there. In this “meantime” we have to give these kids who are being tortured some help. These are individuals not numbers. There are those who will suffer this afternoon and those who will suffer next week. Like our teenagers to whom we explain facts about drinking, these yet living donors must be “driven home safely” even though intoxicated for now. Organasia is halfway between slaughtering kids and locking everyone away from harm. It will have to do until the truth is all out, or rather, accepted. It is out… but people have to want to break their attachment to the way they HOPED it was and accept the hard facts. Organasia will at the very least make people realize that they are choosing to kill a live person. This is a lot less euphoric than that mantra “making grief easier.”

Hi Sam, You have misunderstood me but that’s okay, it’s a big topic and can only be taken slowly. I agree with Dr Byrne too, and you. I’m saying that before we try to push another way to control something bad, you have to protect the victims until that happens. With abortion these days mothers are at least protected from coat hangers. After that is assured then we try to educate those who want to be educated. You can’t educate people who don’t want to be. With organ donations, the victims have to be protected first. They are being dissected while alive… right now as we speak. We have to get people to at least realize that if they want to donate they should also ask for painkillers and doctors must provide this. Organasia (palliated death by organ removal) is the first step in education. Right now people don’t know they can ask for medications. And if they DID know, many of them would ask “WHY? I thought he or she or I would be dead. Hmm I don’t I want to do this after all.” See what I mean?

an interesting excerpt from the National Catholic Bioethics Center: “Why do some say that taking organs from those declared dead by neurological criteria is a form of homicide?

Such comments are irresponsible. Those who make such statements wrongly believe that a person is still alive because the corpse appears to be alive from the effect of oxygenated blood continuing to be pumped through the body which is usually accomplished with the aid of breathing machines and cardiac drugs to maintain blood pressure. Those who reject the use of neurological criteria for the determination of death claim that a patient declared dead by this method is killed for his organs. Such comments overlook the important distinctions mentioned above, and are in tension with sound Catholic teaching.

In medical practice, a physician who is not on the organ transplant team must declare death to avoid any potential conflict of interest. However, it must be emphasized, that the neurological criteria must be rigorously and consistently applied and a judgment made of total brain death before a person is declared dead.”
http://www.ncbcenter.org/page.aspx?pid=1285#whyAccept

Brain death IS an acceptable form of a declaration of death for Catholics. “Organasia” is absurd, though it is extremely important that strict brain death guidelines be followed, as well as a certainty of no conflict of interest.

Does oxygenated blood pumping through the body and cardiac drugs cause a person to breathe and cause their heart to beat? Do these machinations to a dead body actually keep it “alive” enough to use the organs? That makes no sense.
The reality, is that like Terri Schiavo, people are being declared “brain dead”, for the sake of expediency. Why else would the previous definition of death, “no heartbeat, no respiration” have had to be changed?
The Catholic Church needs to promptly find out the truth about this matter and then proclaim it.

Arline - no, oxygenated blood pumping through the body and cardiac drugs do NOT, in fact, CAUSE a person to breath and their heart to beat.  It is impossible without those 2 things, but they in no way cause these occurrences without active brainstem function.  Basic knowledge of neuroanatomy has made that clear. Additionally, once a person has ceased all brain function (and therefore is declared brain dead), it is extremely hard to artificially maintain life processes, as drugs and ‘machinations’ as you call it must take over almost completely.  Also, your admonition for the Catholic Church to ‘discover’ the truth sounds much like the claims of pro-choice and pro-contraception activists, also declaring the same thing - that they in fact, DO posses the Truth, and that the Catholic Church needs to follow suit.

RN, the truth is somewhere. You have conjured things to mean there is no truth so there is no problem. That means you have the truth. What is it?

wendy, the Truth is in the Catholic Church. And as I’ve already stated, She has said that brain death is equal to death. I do not have the Truth; I am simply reiterating what the National Catholic Bioethics Center has already said.

...“RN”, then I have a question for you AND I have an open, public question here formally for the Catholic Church: How is a brain “dead” if it is still able to instruct the heart to beat?

Hi RN, Thank you for your reply and your honesty. Oh, how I wish this thread would really pick up now. We have a fantastic opportunity to get this sorted out. Is organ removal, brain death, death etc based on fact (truth) or opinion? Is it the truth that every debate, every diagnosis, every article, every death by organ removal are carried out as the result of an opinion or a belief? Are these opinions or beliefs motivated by religion and politics (economy)? If the facts were known there would be no need for anything other than a family’s decision. There is huge difference between decision based on facts and one based on opinions or beliefs.  If the church knows the facts as you say, then they should free them up without attaching religion to it. If no one knows the facts, then “no one knows” is the truth…  Why don’t we just have it spat out here?

sam - it doesn’t.  that’s one of the amazing things about the heart - the brain does NOT instruct the heart to beat. There’s a tiny node in the right atrium, called the sinus node, that fires the electrical impulse stimulating the heart to ‘beat.’  However, the brain does regulate the rate at which the sinus node fires that impulse to the heart (stimulating a contraction - or ‘pumping’), which is why when a person is brain dead, their heart does all sorts of wacky rhythms that drugs can help control for awhile - 2 or 3 days tops. The brainstem does control breathing, however, which is why a brain dead person will be 100% dependent on a ventilator (‘respirator’) for breathing.  In fact, to declare a person brain dead, one of the criteria is called an ‘apnea test,’ in which a person’s ventilator is stopped for several minutes, and if they even take one single breath on their own, they are not considered brain dead.  Very seriously brain injured possibly, but NOT brain dead. Good question and I hope this clarifies some things.

also, Sam, at least at my hospital, a pt cannot have had any sort of sedating meds for >24 hrs, so as to rule out their lingering respiratory depressant effect that might misconstrue apnea on an apnea test.  Actually, it might be 48, but I’m not sure.

Hi RN: Why are sedatives given if they are discontinued? I’m thinking of haldol and the like.

Life is the substantial fact of the unity of the soul and body. Death is separation of soul, leaving on earth, the empty remains known as a cadaver, a corpse.
I am alive! Yes, I am writing; my brain is functioning, but so are my heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, etc. There is interdependence of organs and systems to maintain the unity of soul and body during life on earth. No one organ is in charge of all the other organs. When an organ does not function, medicine can support or supplant the vital activity of an organ. For example, a ventilator moves air into the lungs. When the patient is alive with a beating heart and circulation, there will be respiration, which is exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the lungs and all the tissues of the body via the circulation. The ventilator does not move the air out. Only a living body can cause the air to go out. If the ventilator is effective, the patient is living. A ventilator can move air into the lungs of a cadaver, but very quickly after death there is loss of the elastic properties of the lungs and chest so that the air cannot go out of a corpse.
The beating of the heart is intrinsic to the heart. The heart has its own “little brain.” The beat of the heart begins in the heart. The brain does not cause the heart to beat. The brain can provide finesse in the heart rate to coincide with with breathing. The heart rate without any input from the brain is steady and regular. 
The apnea test is part of every declaration of “brain death.” To do the apnea test the ventilator is stopped for as long as 10 minutes. This is suffocation of a living person. The carbon dioxide goes up; this can only cause the patient’s condition to get worse. When the carbon dioxide goes up, brain swelling increases. No one should have an apnea test.
It is against common sense and basic biology to declare a person dead while the heart is beating with circulation and respiration.

wendy - haldol is rarely indicated in this patient population.  What is usually needed is fentanyl (pain medicine), but that is from my standpoint working in a Trauma ICU.  All narcotics have a respiratory depressant effect, so those must be stopped before an apnea test may be performed.  True sedatives can also be given (ativan, versed), but this is more of a tough one.  Generally because when a person is very brain injured, they can still be aware enough to try and be fighting the tubes that are in place to save their life (eg a breathing tube), but not aware enough to not require them. (for example, they aren’t breathing well enough on their own to not have a breathing tube, but they are aware enough to gag on it and show generalized discomfort). Brain death usually (at least in my experiences) is a result of a trauma or aneurysm to the brain, although other examples are anoxic brain injury such as after drug OD or heart attack.  In any case, there is lots of swelling to the brain, more than there is space inside the skull.  When all of this swelling is going on, the patient truly might need to be sedated because brain injuries make people do all sorts of wacky things.  However, if the injury or swelling is so bad that we can’t control it, even with drugs or sometimes surgically removing part of the skull, their brain will continue to swell in the only direction it can - down.  When that happens, the brainstem herniates down into the spinal canal, and dies.  If the swelling has gotten to that point, the rest of the brain dies from lack of blood flow (and therefore oxygen) because there is no space for the blood to pump (google Kellie-Monroe doctrine).  Does that clarify anything?

“Brain death” is a deception.

The declaration of death, “brain death,” is now known to be a fallacy that was contrived for the sole purpose of advancing the transplant industry. Since only fresh, healthy vital organs can be utilized from the living person and not from the dead, the transplant surgeons had a serious problem necessitating an immediate resolve; being charged with medical homicide in the process of excising vital organs from the living and thereby killing them.

A patient in the hospital who has suffered a head injury and is an organ donor, like my sixteen year-old son, Brandon, is a dehumanized living person who is viewed as a container housing a lucrative commodity; fresh vital organs.  Brandon was declared dead, “brain dead,” when in fact he was alive.  He was forced to endure nineteen hours of vital organ preservation treatment; an excruciatingly painful process of chemical perfusion. During this time Brandon’s vital organs were being allocated to benefit others. Brandon’s true death, a planned, timed death of convenience was scheduled.

Twenty hours after my son, Brandon, was falsely declared dead, “brain dead,” his heart and pulse rate was noted as having elevated due to his response to pain. He had been subjected to the scalpel that was inserted in making an incision from his thorax to his pubis. He was then administered a paralyzing drug to inhibit his movement.  Brandon was forced to endured a three and one half hour living dissection as each of his vital organs were excised one at a time.  Brandon’s heart, the seat of his soul, was the last of his organs to be excised and upon completion of Brandon’s living dissection, he was then truly dead.

Brandon’s true death as an organ donor is not an exception; it is the rule.  All organ donors in the US are paralyzed to inhibit their movement prior to their living dissection and this is well documented.

Dr. Byrne speaks with clarity and has dismantled the rhetoric that has been prevalent in the organ donation champaign; the “gift of life” and most recent, “donate life.” This propaganda is now known to be just that; a clever marketing scheme void of any truth.

The presudo-science of “brain death” and various, unnumbered disparate criteria must come to a halt that lives and souls may be saved.

As our Lord God Almighty makes clear, “Thou shall not kill.”

As St Paul makes clear when he said, “evil cannot be done that good may
come from it.”

Perhaps you are hearing the horror, the truth of what an organ donator is forced to endure for the first time.  I understand that it is not pleasant to hear.  Please understand that my son, Brandon, lived and suffered this reality.  Brandon paid the ultimate price for my knowledge and understanding. Please take heed.

“Brain death” is a deception.

The declaration of death, “brain death,” is now known to be a fallacy that was contrived for the sole purpose of advancing the transplant industry. Since only fresh, healthy vital organs can be utilized from the living person and not from the dead, the transplant surgeons had a serious problem necessitating an immediate resolve; being charged with medical homicide in the process of excising vital organs from the living and thereby killing them.

A patient in the hospital who has suffered a head injury and is an organ donor, like my sixteen year-old son, Brandon, is a dehumanized living person who is viewed as a container housing a lucrative commodity; fresh vital organs.  Brandon was declared dead, “brain dead,” when in fact he was alive.  He was forced to endure nineteen hours of vital organ preservation treatment; an excruciatingly painful process of chemical perfusion. During this time Brandon’s vital organs were being allocated to benefit others. Brandon’s true death, a planned, timed death of convenience was scheduled.

Twenty hours after my son, Brandon, was falsely declared dead, “brain dead,” his heart and pulse rate was noted as having elevated due to his response to pain. He had been subjected to the scalpel that was inserted in making an incision from his
thorax to his pubis. He was then administered a paralyzing drug to inhibit his movement.  Brandon was forced to endured a three and one half hour living dissection as each of his vital organs were excised one at a time.  Brandon’s heart, the seat of his soul, was the last of his organs to be excised and upon completion of Brandon’s living dissection, he was then truly dead.

Brandon’s true death as an organ donor is not an exception; it is the rule.  All organ donors in the US are paralyzed to inhibit their movement prior to their living dissection and this is well documented.

Dr. Byrne speaks with clarity and has dismantled the rhetoric that has been prevalent in the organ donation champaign; the “gift of life” and most recent, “donate life.” This propaganda is now known to be just that; a clever marketing scheme void of any truth.

The presudo-science of “brain death” and various, unnumbered disparate criteria must come to a halt that lives and souls may be saved.

As our Lord God Almighty makes clear, “Thou shall not kill.”

As St Paul makes clear when he said, “evil cannot be done that good may
come from it.”

Perhaps you are hearing the horror, the truth of what an organ donator is forced to endure for the first time.  I understand that it is not pleasant to hear.  Please understand that my son, Brandon, lived and suffered this reality.  Brandon paid the ultimate price for my knowledge and understanding. Please take heed.

“Brain death” is a deception.

The declaration of death, “brain death,” is now known to be a fallacy that was contrived for the sole purpose of advancing the transplant industry. Since only fresh, healthy vital organs can be utilized from the living person and not from the dead, the transplant surgeons had a serious problem necessitating an immediate resolve; being charged with medical homicide in the process of excising vital organs from the living and thereby killing them.

A patient in the hospital who has suffered a head injury and is an organ donor, like my sixteen year-old son, Brandon, is a dehumanized living person who is viewed as a container housing a lucrative commodity; fresh vital organs.  Brandon was declared dead, “brain dead,” when in fact he was alive.  He was forced to endure nineteen hours of vital organ preservation treatment; an excruciatingly painful process of chemical perfusion. During this time Brandon’s vital organs were being allocated to benefit others. Brandon’s true death, a planned, timed death of convenience was scheduled.

Twenty hours after my son, Brandon, was falsely declared dead, “brain dead,” his heart and pulse rate was noted as having elevated due to his response to pain. He had been subjected to the scalpel that was inserted in making an incision from his
thorax to his pubis. He was then administered a paralyzing drug to inhibit his movement.  Brandon was forced to endured a three and one half hour living dissection as each of his vital organs were excised one at a time.  Brandon’s heart, the seat of his soul, was the last of his organs to be excised and upon completion of Brandon’s living dissection, he was then truly dead.

Brandon’s true death as an organ donor is not an exception; it is the rule.  All organ donors in the US are paralyzed to inhibit their movement prior to their living dissection and this is well documented.

Dr. Byrne speaks with clarity and has dismantled the rhetoric that has been prevalent in the organ donation champaign; the “gift of life” and most recent, “donate life.” This propaganda is now known to be just that; a clever marketing scheme void of any truth.

The presudo-science of “brain death” and various, unnumbered disparate criteria must come to a halt that lives and souls may be saved.

As our Lord God Almighty makes clear, “Thou shall not kill.”

As St Paul makes clear when he said, “evil cannot be done that good may
come from it.”

Perhaps you are hearing the horror, the truth of what an organ donator is forced to endure for the first time.  I understand that it is not pleasant to hear.  Please understand that my son, Brandon, lived and suffered this reality.  Brandon paid the ultimate price for my knowledge and understanding. Please take heed.

RN: I am still baffled as to why sedatives are seen as essential, which you explain, but they can be optionally stopped for 24 or 48 hours before an apnea test. Wouldn’t the patient be doing all sorts of “wacky things” during those two days? That’s a long time to be flailing about. Do they bind and hog-tie the pre-apnea test patient for that time? On a separate issue, if a patient has CO2 causing ICP wouldn’t sedatives be constricting his breathing even more? You speak of the benefits of these medications per se but the patient’s actual demands don’t appear to be meet with their use. He should rather be doing his wacky things near an open window and getting some good deep breaths in. It seems to me that there is an awful mess going on and as long as the patient is 1) made easier to handle and 2) made ready for organ donation that is all that counts. I don’t see anywhere in your scenario the patient’s wellbeing, his recovery, his future. It seems to me that the only way this patient you describe is going to come out of that ICU you work in, is if his family specifically say “no sedatives, no apnea test, let him flail around, go get the neuro-surgeon for decompression now!” It seems to me that families are going to have to get really knowledgeable about neurology so they can ask for survival and tell the doctor what they want. If not, it seems to be assumed by the medical attendants that the family is asking for death by organ donation because they never cared enough to learn neurology? Is that the bottom line? Everyone needs to learn neurology and neurosurgery? I’m trying to factor this out. We’re almost there. Please reply.

Hi Dr Byrne: Would you say that head injured patients as a rule, are put on ventilators to make up for the depression in their breathing, a situation which is largely brought about by artificial sedation? And that this sedation is given so that the patient is easier to manage in the ICU? I have read that the most effective way to treat head injury is to let the patient tell you his condition with cries, moans and gestures. To do that, the patient should not be immobilized by sedatives, ventilators and paralytics. This technique is used in war situations. With the prevalence of sedatives, ventilators and paralytics all being used arbitrarily and to make the head injured all look alike, it seems that a head injured patient who actually gets his s-p-e-c-i-f-i-c situation assessed is a rarity. In this climate of organ removals, it seems like some sort of deluxe treatment to have your situation personally analyzed. This is awful, to say the least. The current protocols here have to be known so we can adjust if we so wish. One won’t routinely survive head injury in a hospital if one’s situation is not inspected for what it is. Period.

Bernice - first of all, I am truly sorry for your loss.  No parent should ever have to bury their child.  However, you sound very bitter towards the entire process of organ donation.  Why did you consent when you obviously have deep-seated objections to the process?  Secondly, while the information you present is accurate, you fail to give the reasoning for some of the facts. For example, you’re right. Paralytics are given in the OR.  But you fail to mention that it is for spinal reflexes.  I could cut the head off of a pig but keep their lungs breathing on a ventilator and make sure their heart keeps pumping, and they would still twitch from reflexes that arc from an extremity to the spinal cord and back.  Is this pig truly moving? In this case, there is no question that the pig is missing its head.  Is it dead, or not really because their heart and lungs are still technically working?
In the case of humans, we have a soul.  No one knows when the soul leaves the body.  And this is where things get muddy.  I believe that yes, the true ‘death’ time is altered when organs are donated, and that the soul leaves the body at that time.  But if this person weren’t donating their organs, their soul would leave their body at the same time, with the exception that this time, the ventilator would turn off, the person would stop breathing, their heart would stop from lack of oxygenated blood, and their soul would still leave the body.  They would still die. 

And what I don’t understand the most, is that the Catholic Church has said that the donation of organs, in the presence of brain death, is morally acceptable.  So why all of the dissent?  Why the calls for Her to find the truth?  At least in my catechesis, the Catholic Church IS the Truth, the one true church established by Jesus Christ.  So while I can see a conflict of interest in the severely brain injured being unjustly declared brain dead being up for debate, in which case they would only be seen as potential goods instead of a life still living, I don’t see why the actual issue of brain death is being debated here.

hi wendy-

This is hard to explain without actual case scenarios, but here goes.  When your brain is slightly injured, say your frontal lobe, which controls reasoning and judgement, your wacky things might just be impulsiveness, forgetfulness, and occasionally violence.  In this case we don’t want to sedate. However, as (or if) your brain continues to swell, the first sign is a decreased level of consciousness.  If you are still able to answer questions but are still being wacky, you don’t need a breathing tube. In that case, you might need a small sedative, especially if you are getting violent or trying to leave, but medically cannot because this is a result of an evolving brain injury and you are a danger to yourself or others.  Look up GCS scale. They might be a GCS 12-14. These people don’t need to be ventilated, and by all means can go be wacky by that window and get some good deep breaths in.  We’d prefer it.  However, this differs immensely with the person who is a GCS 6. This person doesn’t have the awareness to open eyes to command, might only speak in word salad, and doesn’t follow commands, only localizes, withdraws, or worse, demonstrates posturing.  This is a severely injured brain, and a ventilator is indicated because most of the time, they don’t have the awareness to take in adequate breaths or clear their own secretions.  But, they can still gag. That is a brainstem reflex.  So we will intubate them (by the way, they can still be a GCS 6 and organ donation isn’t even in the picture), but still possibly give them a small sedative to prevent them from constantly gagging around the ETT.  And by the way, we almost always try and decompress before it gets to that point. We always try and push for survival. We want THIS patient to live.
Also of note, the majority of cases I’ve seen where a patient progresses to brain death, is ‘in the field.’ They were found down, the catastrophic swelling occurred, and by the time they were able to get to the hospital, brain death had already occurred or was occurring. I very rarely see a person actively progress to brain death after days in the hospital because there are so many interventions we can try to do to prevent/manage the swelling.

Dr Byrne:
I had a pt once with advanced CHF, whose family wanted all supportive measures continued until his heart stopped, however no CPR. Per their wishes, that is what happened. He was on the vent until his heart stopped, with no EKG tracing, no heart tones via ascultation, despite being on pressors and antiarrhythmics.  At that point, we turned off the vent.  Yet, in that limbo time between no electrical activity in his heart and the vent still on, was he truly dead?  If we had continued with the vent, despite lack of perfusion, would be really be dead?  At that point, his brain would quickly progress to brain death due to a lack of oxygenated blood being perfused to his brain.  However, from your previous argument, there would still be an exchange of gasses at the alveolar level, due to passive diffusion.  The arterial blood gasses would quickly equalize to atmospheric levels due to a lack of the blood leaving the alveolar space, but there would still be passive diffusion of co2 and o2.  Which, of note, goes on in a living person as well.
  So, is the person who doesn’t have a heart beat and is 100% dependent on the vent not dead until we turn off the vent (which would be the same as in organ donation - if we decided not to turn off the vent, we would be effectively delaying TOD and choosing when the soul leaves the body)? I am truly curious where you would draw the line.

Hi RN: You say in one of your posts above, “I don’t see why the actual issue of brain death is being debated here.”  Never was a more observant word spoken. Why indeed when there are far more immediate issues to figure out? You also explain very well the way to make sure a head injured person survives in the hospital if he isn’t found ‘in the field’ with high ICP. With your excellent groundwork laid, I vigorously encourage this debate to center around why the protocols you have beautifully laid out are typically and increasingly *not* carried out in ICUs? If they were, organ donors would only come from people who have stroked and herniated every-which-way *in the field.* While you state that you do your best to have patients live, are you willing to concede that not everyone shares your particular motivation? Can we debate why this is so? Let’s figure out why lifesaving protocols which as you say are so well researched, well built and available in our part of the world, are so often *not* used in hospitals? Why do I get the picture that these procedures are specifically avoided, and the need is buried by all deceptions possible to bring ‘em out and use them? What is going on with all this deliberate indifference being shown towards the head injured and what is making it so? The families themselves? Are they giving the impression with body language or something that they don’t want their brain injured relative to survive and organ donation is a “nice” way to see to things? Some attitude is driving this state of affairs. What is it?

In many article/comment features such as this one we seldom find substantial debates taking place. The replies are usually in the form of single opinions or one or two reactions to a previous post. We had, for a while anyhow, a superb debate going on here: the best I have ever come across on the topic of organ donation etc, even among professionals at conferences. And then it stopped… I keep checking to read more from RN or Dr Byrne but sad to find they have left us. We’d reached the point where each of us had made really clear arguments but now only I am left to carry on. Of course that won’t get us anywhere so all I can do in this post is distill where we were. Dr Byrne puts forward that every person if they have any life left in them is obliged to keep living it. It is the injured person’s duty to God, he says. RN puts forward the ideal treatment protocols for the brain injured but has not entertained the likelihood that her standard of care is not followed everywhere and that deliberate indifference (intentionally avoiding using these perfect protocols) is a way that the transplant industry is stealing organs. RN did provide the compelling information however that every head injured person if they are *not* found with high ICP at the accident site, can be saved once they get to the hospital. My part is to add yes indeed—IF the will is there. And because it isn’t, RN, there is no use in your quoting modern technology. I believe, if I may, that if a head injured person or his family does not wish to live with the effects of brain damage, he does not have the duty to keep living as Dr Byrne purports, and can remove himself from this life by having himself removed himself from the ventilator. Death by CO2 is a very easy, natural way to die. Death by live dissection and organ removal is however very painful and embarrassing and this is where the brain death debate should center. How much can a donor feel? The criterion must not be that every head injured person HAS to be saved and that no one is allowed to die by saying NO to a ventilator. We must allow the head injured to remove themselves from life by removing themselves from the ventilator with organs intact so they can die with peace and dignity and in their own rhythm. You don’t get this with organ removal. If a family or individual is determined to donate organs because they choose to believe deceptive advertizements and want to reflect the glamor of those ads to their friends, then the least the transplant industry could do in return for the organs they get, is anesthetize the donor. This is called Organasia and it must enter the choices available. (RN… if you come back at any point please remember that pain and nausea also provide clues to the condition of a head injured patient. Don’t use sedatives to hide that pain, and don’t use naso-gastric tubes to hide that nausea. Also if the patient wants to leave the hospital please let him do so. He is picking up vibes that he is about to be killed for his organs. Call his family to take him home. He will stand a better chance for a good old CO2 death in his own bed. Thank you).

Life is a continuum from conception until true death. The patient is living with a beating heart, circulation and respiration. It is not biologically or medically sound to apply the word “death” to such a patient. Would anyone with common sense embalm, cremate, or bury someone when the heart is beating with circulation and respiration?

Prior to the desire to get organs for transplantation, no one was declared dead with a beating heart, circulation, or breathing. Every organ for transplantation is taken from a living person. Would anyone with common sense believe that a cadaver, a dead body, would have organs that could be transplanted? 

Patients declared “brain dead” or “heart dead” are living, but they have organs that someone stronger and more powerful desires for transplantation. In “heart death,” the patient has an obviously functioning brain. The relatives are persuaded to give a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order. Ventilator is then taken away. The living patient is observed until the pulse is not strong enough to be detected or palpated. Note that the heart is beating, but not strong enough for a pulse to be observed. The time without a pulse is 75 seconds or five minutes, depending on the institution. What is the hurry? The reason is that organs must be healthy for transplantation.

Any doctor who is worth his salt would not declare death and begin the autopsy on a person with a beating heart, respiration, and circulation. Any priest who is worth his salt would not deny baptism to someone with a beating heart, circulation, and respiration (assuming that this is an infant of Catholic parents or an adult scheduled for baptism next Sunday). If the priest can baptize, can he accept and theologically authorize cutting into the chest of this same person to cut out the beating heart for transplantation into another person? Every heart that is transplanted is a healthy heart taken from a living person who is killed in the process.

Human life is in the whole body, not just in a functioning brain. “Brain death” is not true death; it never was, and never will be. Organ harvesting is a multi-billion dollar anti-life industry.

Hi Dr Byrne, I appreciate your work in this area. It is invaluable. I feel however that your position does not quite take into account the practical aspects of surviving organ “coralling,” let’s call it. The Catholic church is in a great position to provide a prototype hospital for brain treatment, survival or dignified death. Would it be possible for you to lobby for such a “first?” Failing the act of creating hospitals specifically for organ donation prevention, the church would do well to teach people within its reach about neurology so they know what to expect when entering a hospital. I read among the comments that Mrs Bernice Jones is a member of your church and sorely regrets not knowing more about neurology at the time her son was ripped from her care. What do you say to this idea? Both of them?

While my work “is invaluable,” it has been done with little financial support. “Practical aspects of surviving organ ‘coralling’ is not clear to me.” What is clear is that unpaired vital organs (heart and liver) are taken from living people who are killed in the organ taking process. The Catholic Church provides theological and moral leadership. This includes not to kill and not to harm. Pope Benedict XVI on November 7, 2008 stated, “Individual vital organs cannot be extracted except ex cadavere.” Pope Benedict’s “ex cadavere” is Latin for “from a dead body.” Neither heart nor liver can be transplanted from a cadaver, a dead body. It is legal to do these transplants in all 50 states. To protect all citizens including Catholics, change the law to: “No one shall be declared dead unless respiratory and circulatory systems and the entire brain have been destroyed. Such destruction shall be determined in accord with universally accepted standards (Gonzaga Law Review 18, No. 3).” This is solidly based medically and unexceptionable ethically and religiously. More truthful education about false death, known as “brain death” and “heart death” can be helpful.

What I sent earlier had the close quotation mark in the wrong place. Here it is corrected:

While my work “is invaluable,” it has been done with little financial support. “Practical aspects of surviving organ ‘coralling’” is not clear to me. What is clear is that unpaired vital organs (heart and liver) are taken from living people who are killed in the organ taking process. The Catholic Church provides theological and moral leadership. This includes not to kill and not to harm. Pope Benedict XVI on November 7, 2008 stated, “Individual vital organs cannot be extracted except ex cadavere.” Pope Benedict’s “ex cadavere” is Latin for “from a dead body.” Neither heart nor liver can be transplanted from a cadaver, a dead body. It is legal to do these transplants in all 50 states. To protect all citizens including Catholics, change the law to: “No one shall be declared dead unless respiratory and circulatory systems and the entire brain have been destroyed. Such destruction shall be determined in accord with universally accepted standards (Gonzaga Law Review 18, No. 3).” This is solidly based medically and unexceptionable ethically and religiously. More truthful education about false death, known as “brain death” and “heart death” can be helpful.

In rounding up these loose ends, I would like to address Dr Byrne’s last sentence: “Organ harvesting is a multi-billion dollar anti-life industry.” I suggest leaving out “anti-life” because organ donation makes 8 lives out of one so it can’t be said to be anti-life. If the organs were being eaten then yes, it would be anti-life. Also, everyone dies at some point. The issue is strictly one of the donor’s pain and feelings of degradation in each step as he is led to be dissected live. The are several stages to the fear, torture and degradation for a donor or ‘could-be-with-family-persuasion’ donor. 1) When he is trapped in the hospital and denied care so he will worsen towards the ‘brain death’ designer label 2) as he is prepared defenselessly for hours as a commodity 3) the actual removal of his living organs and the sense of grabbing at his being. We cannot argue life when 1=8 but we can argue dignity. This is the true soul of man. The industry must tell the truth, offer painfree donation if this is to be the choice, and let people make up their own minds.

Are you sure you want to be an Organ Donor?  Since my daughter’s care at the hospital, I began to ask some questions and this is what I found out.  I will back up, to tell you what led me to this discovery.  My daughter, Melissa was hit by a car as she was crossing the street.  She suffered from acute brain trauma.  A miracle happens moments after the accident.  The miracle was, an ambulance just happens to pass by within minutes of the accident.  My daughter is given care immediately.  She arrives at the hospital within 18 minutes.  Later, I found out that treatment, such as Mannitol and hypothermia therapy   for acute brain trauma could have been given by the EMT’s.  She should have been carried to a level 1 trauma center because of her multiple traumatic injuries, vitals, and the GCS score.  But the medical director of the nearby local hospital did not advise the EMT’s to give my daughter

1)    Mannitol

2)    Hypothermia therapy

3)    Did not call for the neurosurgeon until 23:33, almost one hour after my daughter’s accident.

4)    To transfer her to a level 1 facility that had the expertise to take care of her multiple traumatic injuries. 

Another fact I just found, there was a major hospital just five minutes from my daughter’s accident, in fact 1.2 miles away.  A place where she could have been given immediate blood and oxygen, hypothermia therapy, CSF drain, HBOT.  It is a fully functional trauma center.  Yet my daughter is taken 18 minutes in the other direction.  Precious minutes go by that she is without adequate oxygen supply and blood supply.  Does this make sense?     

Instead my daughter is taken to the nearby hospital that the base director is working from.  She gets evaluated and a CT scan done.  But what I have learned is that there is a golden hour of opportunity to stop the Intracranial Brain Pressure from rising.  There are many aggressive treatments that can be done for acute brain trauma. Later, I found out that hypothermia therapy and a CSF drain could and is performed in the E.R. at this hospital.  I wonder why my daughter did not get this treatment?  But yet she will get mannitol as a treatment.  Surgery is what my daughter needed immediately, she got mannitol.  Her ICP came down from 80 to 25.  It is noted that improvement is made.  Why, if improvement is noted, wouldn’t you begin the next line of treatment?  How can you go from treatment in one minute and decide not to treat in the next minute.  By the time this takes place the Doctor had already looked at the CT Scan and the patient.  Why would you give mannitol?  She did not become more fatal in one minute? Then the doctor made the decision not to advanced care.  He said, “she is a poor prognosis and poor outcome”.  Instead of going by the Scientific facts, like the fact that she is breathing over the machine, her heart is beating, she is maintaining blood pressure and regulating her body temperature.  These functions are controlled by the BRAIN not the VENT.  He went by his feelings.  So my daughter who is breathing and has a weak cough, all signs of brain stem function, is let to lie there in pain with no treatment except supportive care while they wait to harvest her organs.  We are asked within two hours for her organs via the phone.  I must insert this is our word against the doctor.  He denies this now.  But they can’t deny what is on the medical report.  It says, “Our daughter is coughing up until 3:00 a.m. It says the ongoing plan is to harvest her organs.  The doctors and hospital had an option.  Operate on my daughter and hope for a miracle, or call it quits, and let my daughter’s life benefit the federal government in lieu of the local donor stores to the passing out of her organs to the world.  If there had not been an option, my daughter would have gotten medical care because the doctor and hospital need to make money despite the futility of their efforts.

This was the first heartbreaking awakening that I found out:  A doctor and hospital can withhold care from you if they think you are futile.  This is a contradiction to all the care that cancer patients get.  I guess it is where the money is that deems if you are given care, not whether you are futile or not.

The whole reason for our suspicion of this Hospital and it’s Doctors is the careless and aggressive way in which we were approached for our daughter’s organ.  The first time within two hours, and over the phone. This is our word against theirs.  Second, moments after I arrive, standing by my daughter’s bed, it seems as though it is being shouted from the nursing center about the designation on my daughter’s license.  It was thought at that time, her Colorado’s license had a donor designation on it, but maybe not her Oklahoma’s. They had to make sure both complied with being a donor. So I am standing by my daughter, feeling pretty good, because my daughter looks amazing for just being hit by a car. Her face is beautiful, she looks like Snow White, asleep, awaiting the magic to wake her up.  All her limbs are intact, she is breathing, and I am told all of her major organs are unharmed.  I am excited, because I think that there is a possibility that my daughter might make it.  So I start talking to Melissa, I ask her to move her toe to let me know that she knows I am here.  She moves the left baby toe and the one next to it.  She did this four times when I ask her to.  I know it was purposeful and a direct response to my asking her, because she did it four times when I asked her to.  Then my husband’s Aunt Linda comes in the room from the meeting with the doctors.  This is when and how I find out about organ donation.  They told her they are checking Melissa’s license in Oklahoma to make sure that it complied with her Denver licenses.  This is when I find out that being a donor does not mean you are in the morgue.  It means something different, in fact I had no idea what it meant to be a donor.  But I did not know that it meant being operated on while you are alive, heart beating and breathing.  The very thought of this sends a sickness to my stomach that can’t be described.  All I can think about is Brave Heart. The disembowelment of a live human being. This is wrong.  Every time they scraped the bottom of her foot she pulled it away.  Yet they say, “This is insignificant, it is spinal.”  My thought, ‘Why do it, if it is insignificant.” It is noted continually by the nurse as he is questioning my daughter’s response to painful stimuli in the upper limbs and lower limbs.  Is it Spinal or a reflex, he writes with many question marks to follow???  Yet nothing is done.  Later, I read, ‘that my daughter contracted her thigh muscle to toe nail bed pressure.”  This is significant because the thigh muscle is a skeletal muscle and is only activated by the cortex of the brain.  Other signs of life were that my daughter started her menstrual cycle, which is controlled by the hypothalamus part of the brain.  My daughter kept her temperature constant; this is regulated by the brain.  The beating of the heart is regulated by the brain.  My daughter lifted her body off the bed three times.  The doctor said “this could be motor”. Motor is a function of the brain. Still, nothing is done to help my daughter.  The nurse even said, “my daughter breathed over the machine, and coughed two days before she passed.  Yet, nothing is done, no food or blood to relieve the anemia.  She did not get pain medication.  A defrillbilator could have been implanted in her to assist her heart to continue.  Nothing is done on the offensive side, all she got was support, the vent and hydration.  People who are sick need food, blood, pain meds and care.  The ventilator is not functioning as the brain; it is just a machine that just pushes air through the lungs, everything else like temperature, heartbeat, and contractions are controlled by the brain.  They said, “My daughter has doll‘s eyes, but it says on the medical report that it is not checked.  I cannot remember them checking for the supra-orbital reflex.  I do not remember them checking her hands for nail bed pressure or her chest either.  After our stand that our daughter deserved first rights to her organs, they took us before an ethics committee.  We invited a lawyer to sit in on this ethics committee meeting.  The ethics committee ended by saying, “we can keep our daughters organs, and that they are now off the table.”  I never knew they were on the table, but the medical report says that there was an ongoing plan to donate her organs even before brain death was documented.  In fact, brain death was not documented.  They blame this on me, but the truth is they had ten hours before I arrived to do any test that they wanted.  But they did not do it.  Why?  I believe they did not do it because my daughter was still coughing up until 3:00 a.m.  This is a brain stem function.  Brain death can only be declared when all brain stem function is absent.  My daughter was alive when the decision to withhold care from her was made.  This is equivalent to performing CPR on a drowning victim and in the middle you stop and say, “This is a poor prognosis and poor outcome.  Let’s stop in the mist of resuscitation.  When I was there, they could have done anything they wanted, I was just the mother, watching, really the nurses were taking care of my daughter.  It says on the medical report that doctors were talking to us.  But this is not true.  Most of our communication was with the nurses.  Later, with a doctor and the head of nursing.  And with the doctor, I had to beg blood from in exchange for an EEG.  Can you believe this?  I, a mother had to barter for blood products in a hospital.  When the organs were taken off the table, I thought everything was going to be okay.  Later, after reviewing the medical records, I realized that my daughter only got supportive care while they were waiting for her to die.  Because at that time I did not know she was not getting food.  If you do not get food, you will die especially when you are weak, in trauma and shock.  One treatment for brain trauma is nutrition; it needs to be started within 24 hours.  My daughter was anemic, the doctor reports, “It is probably due to a loss of blood.”  But blood products are not given to relieve the anemia.  The medical doctors know that my daughter is going to have cardiac failure.  But they do not try to prevent this from happening by implanting a defrillbilator in her to keep her heart beating. My daughter is in pain, and shock.  She never gets pain medication.  I read that nutrition was not given because it would complicate the harvest, I believe this is probably why pain medication was not given.  It would complicate the harvest.  The political word of the day: recover.  But this is incorrect, you have to lose something in order to recover it.  Organs are not lost they are taken from precious brain injured patients.  Can you not see how horrible this is, to die because your organs are being cut out of your body without anesthesia.  But even after the world demands anesthesia, it is still wrong.  God is not going to put up with this evil. My daughter died because she did not get care because the doctors deemed her futile, and brain dead without documentation.  My daughter was never brain dead.  She showed the doctors many times that she was alive, by coughing, withdrawing her legs, contracting her thigh, and lifting her body off the bed, maintaining heartbeat and regulating her body temperature.

Now this is what I have found out about organ donation, and the donor operation.  The first thing I found out is that there are critics to brain death diagnosis and organ donation.  These critics believe that brain death was concocted for one reason, to obtain profuse organs. It so happens that two variables had a need. The variables were the discovery of anti-rejection drug and the ability to transplant organs.  The need was organs.  Where oh where can we get profuse alive organs?????  Organs have to be oxygenated for a successful transplant.  You can only get these organs from alive patients.  The Ad Hoc Committee had to think real hard.  Where can we get oxygenated organs?  We have to get them from people who look dead, that can’t communicate with the outside world as to whether they are alive or not.  So this was their plan to take organs from a suffering humanity.  The only problem is that these organs are being taken from brain alive patients.  I have read that the donor operation goes like this.  The patient is wheeled to the Operating Room Theatre.  He is hooked up to a ventilator, he is breathing, his heart is beating, and his blood flowing.  He is met with transplant teams from all over the world.  Each team is there for their piece of the donor.  Some are there for thoracic cavity, others are there for the abdominal region, and the others are there for left-overs.  And the poor nurses are there to watch in horror and for the clean-up.  Now that everyone is there, the donor’s hands are tucked under his side, to provide a better opening for the thoracic cavity and the abdominal region.  The anesthesiologist is there to make sure the’ rule of 100”s is being managed, he is not there to provide anesthesia, Anesthesia is not given, so the brain injured victim could be conscious when this surgery takes place. It is said that a neuro (brain)muscular blocking agent is given to keep the brain from transmitting to the tummy not to tighten up to the approaching knife. This is not given for the benefit of the brain injured victim.  It is given for the benefit of the surgeon, it is hard to slice into a tightened stomach, and to operate on a moving victim who is trying to take the knife away.  It is said that the blood pressure will rise from 100 to 220 as the knife is inserted into the thoracic cavity. The blood pressure is controlled by the brain. It is said, if the brain patient victim suffers a heart attack and dies before the operation is complete that they will resuscitate him back to life until remaining organs are cut out. It is said that the donor will begin to move his limbs and may even do more complex moves like sit up.  They say this is all spinal.  But I say it is the adrenaline rush that we humans get when we face death situations.  The adrenaline gland is a function of the brain. The donor’s body temperature will go down.  This is regulated by the brain.  The medical community explains all of these functions away.  But these are clear functions of the brain.  It is said they have to convince the novice nurse that after this display of life that this patient is really dead.  I am not a medical doctor or nurse, but I know what is living and what is dead, I do not have to be convinced.  There is a propaganda machine that has been promoting this lie for over 32 years now.  It has been adopted worldwide amidst all this controversy.  This machine wants to force us all to be donors by many laws. They hire companies to come up with ways to make us all donors.  This company suggested raising the donor age to 70, but concluded this could cause a problem.  Because you know who wants to buy the heart of 70 year old when the heart of a twenty year old one is available.  The author suggested a tier system.  I guess this means you will have to organize the organs by how old they are.  You would have to advise the recipient of the age of the organ.  This I think could cause a real nightmare for the organ industry when the word gets out from a disgruntled recipient that I got the wrong organ, I paid for the 20 year old heart. They also suggested education.  Educate the people to be donors and shame the ones who do not.  This sounds like coercion. Why is there such a frenzy here?  More than half of the organs are going to people who are at the end of their lives.  It is not like they haven’t lived a fruitful and long life.  According to the Bible we are only promised seventy years.  And if we are strong in the Lord, we could live longer.  Does it make sense to give an elderly person a daily regimen of poison a day?  The side effects of this drug is devastating.  This drug will break down the immune system and will cause cancer.  It also is very expensive.  So does it make sense?  The most prevalent is the presumed consent law.  But I am going to challenge the designation to be a donor on the driver license as invalid for four reasons:

1)    It is a contract, a contract has to benefit both parties, and this contract benefits only one the United States Federal Government.  The organs of a donor can be sold for a million dollars.

2)    Before signing a contract, you must be able to read the contract.  The donor needs to know that the surgery to donate his organs will be done on the basis of a brain death diagnosis.  That he will not get anesthesia.  That he might suffer a heart attack. And if he does suffer a heart attack he will be resuscitated ,brought back to life until remaining organs are cut out. And that his organs might not even be used.

3)    The official at the driver’s license bureau is not qualified to determine who is of a sound mind before signing this important document.

4)    The Federal Government is asking a minor to consent to a surgical operation without the permission of his parents.

The presumed consent law will be challenged before the Supreme Court.

1)    It takes our freedom away to choose or give a gift.

2)    It is discrimination against the poor and uneducated.  Only the rich who can afford to go to a lawyer to get living directive will be able to be excluded from being a donor.  Only the educated and informed will be able to make a decision on the basis of informed knowledge.

More facts that I found out:

The number one donor will be a 24 year old male, will be uninsured and will live in the Northeast.

How can only the uninsured suffer brain injury????Give me a break.

The government demands the hospital and doctor to notify the donor entity of a potential donor.

UNOS says, that they will make the smaller hospitals comply with this law, either with carrots which are incentives or sticks which is legislation.

How can you bring legislation into being if you are not a Congressmen or State Senator?? How can you boast that you have that much authority to get your way??????

I think this should be challenged because this violates HIPPA.  No one, not even the federal government should be able to share your medical history without your permission.

With advancement in treatment for brain trauma only 20% or less will die.  So how does the government get organs?  How can there be so many donors if 80% will survive and recover to a good outcome?

It is a government law that the donor stores have to make quota or get disenfranchised.  How can you put a quota on organs?  This is not a good policy, pressuring someone to come up with living organs.  How many organs are expected to be delivered a month?  Could someone explain this law to me????

Who gets the money?

Who are the recipients?

Are they rich and just want to live longer?

Most recipients are over the age of 50, the majority over 60.

The donor store gets almost a million dollars for a free product, they in turn will make the family of the brain injured victim pay the hospital bill that incurred before the deal is sealed.  Like I said, the donor is more than likely to be uninsured.  This is a predictor.  Therefore the grief stricken patient’s family will have to pay thousands in doctor bills, paying for care that their loved ones did not get.  But, the donor stores walk off with millions in free donated merchandise.  How much profit is the donor store making?

I hope the whole world hears my cry, donor operation is horrific, and it is potentially the disembowelment of a live human being who does not get anesthesia.  This is not a dignified operation.  The nurses say they “feel sad, we they are left to rinse the blood out of a hollow shell. It is a numbing feeling.  We would not even treat the bodies of our animals like this.  There has to be a better way to prolong life than this.

Sincerely yours,

Melissa’s mom, Carolyn    

The issues are about life and death. A person is living on earth until truly dead. To cut out a beating heart and other vital organs is anti-life as this ends the life and kills the donor. Yes, it is killing! The issue is compounded, at least emotionally, by dissecting the living donor without an anesthetic. Yes, it is torturous vivisection! Much interest in these issues has been expressed in these comments. Come to a retreat presented by Fr. Elias Mills and me at Mother of Redeemer Retreat Center in Bloomington, IN on Jan 18, 19 and 20, 2013 to further discuss and find out more about life issues including “brain death” and organ transplantation. Call 812 825-4642, Ext 200 to make reservation. At the retreat, you can discuss directly with me.

This is a fantastic thread! At last I have come upon an article and comments that don’t end the day after the article is posted. The issue of continuous suffering doesn’t end in a day. It is real and we have to figure it out and fix it. Carolyn, you are amazing. Your depth of feeling, intelligence and courage is rare. I am very grateful you added your story. I have a similar horror story but they share the same echo. I will let yours speak for me. I am at the point where I AM that person being trapped, prepared, managed, wheeled, palpated, positioned and poised for live dissection. I feel the beady eyes and greedy hands of so-called medical people… all avoiding personal guilt and shame because there are a lot of them. They call themselves a TEAM but they are just a loop of shifting the blame until a wall of sandbags protects them. As that person I want to be numbed now more than anything. At least give me a painkiller… The most important thing that Carolyn shows us, Dr Byrne, is that the debate known as, “Is brain death true death” must be changed or updated to ask, “Does any and all brain DAMAGE equal death?” Melissa was subjectively viewed to be “Dead” because she had suffered brain damage. She came to the hospital with a certain injury and was worsened at the hospital not only as to her condition but also increasing her fear, suffering, horror, sadness and entrapment. Melissa is not alone in what happened to her (it is nation-wide protocol now) but she alone has a mother who realizes that bad things continue unless good people protest and do not consent. I am at the point where I see that we need to apply to an Animal Rights Group for protection. These groups are at least aware of what constitutes torture to living beings. Another problem is culture. When you think of the centuries-old slow killing of animals in the Old World so that their meat is pure (like organs for transplant taken from ventilated patients) this practice is protected as a cultural activity. Similarly, we in the Western World culturally love the idea of organ donation and transplant. There is something about it that appeals and speaks to the Western sentiment of trusting professionals, being superior to others in the charity department and being physically attractive. We like to appear multi-dimensional but without drooling or aphasia. With organ donation and transplant *not* about to end or be banned we have to follow the lead of animal rights groups and try to make things a little easier for the brain damaged who are condemned as valueless, useless and might-as-well-be-dead. Melissa and others lie there, more desperate than they have ever been, and hoping more than they have ever hoped that they will be saved. But they are not. The least we can do is mitigate their pain and indignity even at the cost of admitting that yes, if you need pain relief, Melissa, we are killing you. I urge you, Dr Byrne, to advocate at your meeting for a prototype hospital where organ donation is not an option, survival is sought by all means, and if families or patients wish to remove themselves from life support they can do so with organs intact.  I am a little unsure of your insistence on organ donation being about life and death as opposed to dignity because Catholics did, and do, fight and die in wars. Thank you.

This is a fantastic thread. At last I have come upon an article and comments that don’t end the day after the article is posted. The issue of continuous suffering doesn’t end in a day. It is real and we have to figure it out and fix it. Carolyn, you are amazing. Your depth of feeling, intelligence and courage is rare. I am very grateful you added your story. I have a similar horror story but they share the same echo. I will let yours speak for me. I am at the point where I *am* that person being trapped, prepared, managed, wheeled, palpated, positioned and poised for live dissection. I feel the beady eyes and greedy hands of so-called medical people… all avoiding personal guilt and shame because there are a lot of them. They call themselves a team but they are just a loop of shifting the blame until a wall of sandbags protects them. As that person under the knife I want to be numbed now more than anything. At least give me a painkiller. The most important thing that Carolyn shows us, Dr Byrne, is that the debate known as, “Is brain death true death” must be changed or updated to ask, “Does any and all brain *damage* equal death?” Melissa was subjectively viewed to be “Dead” because she had been hit on the head. She came to the hospital with a certain injury and was worsened at the hospital not only as to her condition but also increasing her fear, suffering, horror, sadness and entrapment. Melissa is not alone in what happened to her (it is nation-wide protocol now) but she alone has a mother who realizes that bad things continue unless good people protest and do not consent. I am at the point where I see that we need to apply to an animal rights group for protection. These groups are at least aware of what torture to living beings is. Another problem is culture. When you think of the centuries-old slow killing of animals in the Old World so that their meat is pure (like organs for transplant taken from ventilated patients) this practice is protected as a cultural activity. Similarly, we in the Western World culturally love the idea of organ donation and transplant. There is something about it that appeals and speaks to the Western sentiment of trusting professionals, being superior to others in the charity department and being physically attractive. We like to appear multi-dimensional but without drooling or aphasia. With organ donation and transplant *not* about to end or be banned we have to follow the lead of animal rights groups and try to make things a little easier for the brain damaged who are condemned as valueless, useless and might-as-well-be-dead. Melissa and others lie there, more desperate than they have ever been, and hoping more than they have ever hoped that they will be heard and understood. But they are not. The least we can do is mitigate their pain even at the cost of admitting that yes, if you need pain relief, Melissa, we are killing you. I urge you, Dr Byrne, to advocate at your meeting for a prototype hospital where organ donation is not an option, survival is sought by all means, and if families or patients wish to remove themselves from life support they can do so with organs intact.  I am a little unsure of your insistence on organ donation being about life and death as opposed to dignity because Catholics did, and do, fight and die in wars. Thank you.

Yes, Dr Byrne and Carolyn, even with anesthesia, organ donation is wrong. I am not saying anesthesia makes it okay. Nor am I saying that the industry telling the truth and having people make up their own minds makes it okay. I’m saying we have to move past who stands for what and go to the victims. There is a danger in getting bogged down with wrong and right while real people’s suffering pays the price as various moral positions duke it out. This situation calls for emergency action (as far as is possible to do that). If we get caught up in “giving anesthetic will send the wrong message” we will end up being exactly like the transplant industry… that’s their line as well! Melissa’s counterparts are in pain and need some relief from that pain at least. Why should they be denied it literally because a theoretical ideal hangs in the balance and if we give them relief as they are murdered then we have abandoned our ideology? That’s like saying to a thirsty man, “I can’t give you any water from that Hydro dam because I don’t agree with the government for building it.” We need to have a solution rather than worry about whose solution it is.

Protection of the transplant team is provided through laws designed to get organs, not to protect the innocent unconscious patient: UDDA, UAGA and HIPPA. A painkiller while killing the person is not an answer. It is immoral to kill an innocent human person. Death is the absence of life. Can absence of life occur while there are many signs of life including a beating heart, circulation and respiration?  Ask anyone seven years or older, is someone dead while there is a beating heart and respiration. To cut out the beating heart and other vital organs of innocent Brandon, and not to treat innocent Melissa is cruel and non-professional. A physician ought not kill or harm the patient. While there is still room, register for the retreat at Mother of Redeemer Retreat Center in Bloomington, IN on Jan 18, 19 and 20, 2013 to further discuss and find out more about life issues including “brain death” and organ transplantation. Call 812 825-4642, Ext 200 to make a reservation. At the retreat, you can discuss directly with me.

Dr, you say “a physician ought not kill or harm a patient.” This standard is governed by current ethics. Ethics are not law, they are not rules. Ethics are a measure of public tolerance, public demand, and public taste. Ethics change all the time. This is why medicine escapes the law as we saw with Greg Jacobs. Ethics now allow and in fact require a physician—for the sake of our current public and our current interest—to harm or kill a patient if that patient will go on to plague humanity with his resulting mental/brain problems. You and I call it harm and killing but ethics don’t. They are the great semantic cure-all. They call it “injuries incompatible with living.” This phrase is borrowed from the original coroner’s term, “injuries incompatible with life” applied to people who are found with their heads blown off. Ethics have changed that to apply to someone who will look unattractive after head injury survival or someone who will go on to commit shooting sprees because of brain damage. I bet the shooting spree in Newtown made organ donors agree with their choice. The long and short of it is that there is nowhere to go to survive head injury unless you are well versed in neurology, can stay with your relative round the clock and are up for a fight with touchy doctors and nurses. Melissa’s mother knew to say NO to donation and ask for survival but it didn’t work. Melissa was killed because she was proof of a “donor” assumption gone bad. She was killed because she was almost saved by her mother’s logic (in the absence of actual neurological or harvesting knowledge). I cannot grasp adequately who your audience is Dr Byrne because the industry isn’t listening. The more wrong their bombing, the more they will bomb. The public isn’t listening because we are a culture of donors. This is why we were targeted in the first place.  We need material alternatives if we are exceptions in our culture. We need hospitals where we can go for flawed survival or natural death like we do for natural birth. Until this can be arranged the unnatural death known as organ donation will continue because it is arranged to look so easy, so comforting and so very socially acceptable. Asking for survival care in a hostile hospital is not enough. You will be punished for your insolence. Securing analgesics for donors and for people left to languish in pain like Melissa and others I know of who weren’t donors but were never asked, is a first step in limiting this free-for-all.  If one is not a donor one is a risk and collateral evidence to a wild and fierce culling of epidemic proportions. Dr Byrne, you inform people that brain death is not death and to say no to organ donation but then what? Do you call the police? They will cart us off, not the ethic-of-the-hour doctors or nurses…

Thank you for the debate Dr Byrne. When a topic is energetically courted and discussed, the results are always productive.  I hope there will yet be a little flame burning in this corner of the internet when you get back from your meeting.  Before you leave, however, I want to go out on a limb and speak for myself as well as Bernice Jones, Carolyn and Teresea Jacobs.  I hope they will correct my “boldness” if need be but I’m sure they will agree with what I am going to say. None of us laments the death of our children as much as the horrific way in which they died. I am positive that each of us would willingly push our own feelings of loss into the background in exchange for a reversal of the intense suffering and degradation our children underwent in their respective traps of doom.  This is the point of separation between you Dr Byrne, and we four who lost our children to organ donation fallout or collateral damage.  You, as a doctor, pursue and relish the moment of saving a life, the accomplishment and the feat. As a devout Catholic you relish the moment another one of the flock is reinstated to do his duty living for the faith numbers. We four mothers concern ourselves with imagining an instant death for our departed children, free of suffering and replete with dignity and ownership over their own time and times.  This to us, is “saving their lives.” People say to me, why haven’t you gotten over this yet. People die all the time. Well, as I have said from the time I happened upon this site, organ-taking and all its tentacles isn’t about life and death; it’s about control, dignity and peace and the denial thereof to people who are dying and desperate to draw on their inner strength if they were just allowed to have it! The fact that those “rights” of passage from this world to the next are still in deficit for our four children (and others) is what makes their horror impossible to reconcile.  All we can do is make this distinction and know what to do if a head injury ever befalls any other member of our families or ourselves.  I have been trying to ask you to arrange something to help people who want to forestall the organ machine from the get-go. Although we can’t cite religious reasons for being against organ donation (the Catholic church is divided on the issue) it is a wealthy entity and it has expressed interest in sorting out this dilemma. I’m just saying a prototype hospital or neurology ward would set the ball rolling. It would be money, commitment and empathy well-spent. Right now the only input from the church (some of it) is that life shouldn’t be taken because you say so. I’m afraid that this might just increase organ donation. People will rail against religion telling them what to do and owning their bodies. This is what the transplant industry is doing so your way which amounts to the same style of thing is to “pick one’s poison.”  I would rather do the best thing under the circumstances when it arises and that includes accepting or refusing space–age medical equipment or gratefully procuring anesthetic for my suffering child when we are up against insurmountable lies, deceit and ill will. Thank you.

Ethics is how one ought to behave. Ethics based on the order set up by the Creator does not “allow or . . .require a physician—for the sake of our current public and and our current interest—to harm or kill a patient.” Neurologists know that the patient declared “brain dead” is living and not truly dead. They might say (as Wendy wrote) “injuries incompatable with living.” This phrase is borrowed from the original coroner’s term, “incompatable with life.” Wendy writes, “The long and short of it is that there is nowhere to go to survive head injury unless you are well versed in neurology, can stay with your relative around the clock and are up to fight with touchy doctors and nurses.” My response: Do all this and more, but none of this will be effective, especially if the patient is 18-30 years old. “I cannot grasp adequately who your audience is Dr. Byrne because the industry isn’t listening.” You are listening and so are many, and more needs to be done. Register for the retreat at Mother of Redeemer Retreat Center in Bloomington, IN on Jan 18,19 and 20 to further discuss and find out about life issues including “brain death” and organ transplantation. Call 812 825-4642, Ext 200 to make a reservation. At the retreat, you can discuss directly with me. Plans can be made about what to do next. We need to be on God’s time schedule. For now, tell your relatives you wish to live as long as God gives you. Do not shorten life. Do not hasten death. Do not do an apnea test. Do not be an organ donor. Contact http://www.lifeguardianfoundation.org for more information.

Law is how one ought to behave. Ethics is how a majority agrees to behave. When a Spartan mother threw her slightly imperfect baby off a cliff into a pit it was seen as ethical (Greek word, Greek people). Ethics is behavior within a cultural, geographic or economic context.  Even though we are North Americans and as smug as they come, we too, are boxed into into a context and in this case, donation, charity, heroism and advertising (nice words replacing truth). There is a huge difference between law, rights and ethics. These are terribly confused with one another. I don’t like the way it is, I am saying what we are up against with medical ethics filling in for law and rights. Secondly, (I wish we could make paragraphs here :)) I would like to flesh out the logic a bit. I have stated, “The long and short of it is that there is nowhere to go to survive head injury unless you are well versed in neurology, can stay with your relative around the clock and are up to fighting with touchy doctors and nurses.” Dr Byrne replies, “Do all this and more, but none of this will be effective, especially if the patient is 18-30 years old. Dr Byrne states, “tell your relatives you wish to live as long as God gives you. Do not shorten life. Do not hasten death. Do not do an apnea test. Do not be an organ donor.” I reply, “Do all this and more, but none of this will be effective, especially if the patient is 18-30 years old.” We do agree though, and thankfully so, that plans need to be made what to do next. Third, I put forward a scenario in a dark alley where a person is about to be murdered. Would that person ask the killer for life support? Would he ask the killer to let him live as long as God gives him? The killer would simply answer—and be correct in saying so—“the fact that you came walking down this alley into my waiting fists means your time is up, buddy.” I would probably only ask him to kill me quickly and throw in some strong drink to numb the pain if he had any on him.  Until we have safe alleys, and safe hospitals we need to at least get analgesics given to our victims. There ought to be at least some tiny difference between a hospital and a dark alley…?

Within minutes of having arrived at the hospital my family and I were told there was “no hope” for my son, Brandon.  The physician stated that Brandon was “brain dead.”  What we were not told was Brandon was breathing on his own and responding.  In applying the ventilator, due to Brandon’s reaction to inserting the tube, he was administered a paralyzing drug to subdue him.

Brandon was forced to endure three apnea tests; 2 minutes, 5 minutes and the third, 10 minutes of withdrawing the ventilator when under the influence of paralyzing drugs and painkillers.  Due to the drugs administered it was impossible for Brandon to breath on his own or respond in any way; something the physician had to be well aware of.  Brandon suffered medical suffocation to produce what was desired: a living container of fresh organs to be used as commodities.

As I stated in my earlier comment, all organ donors in the US are administered a paralyzing drug prior to being dissected alive. This is not done for the benefit of the organ donor, rather, for the benefit of the transplant surgeons and those who accompany them in the surgical theater.

It has been known for decades, that upon being subjected to the excruciating pain that is inflicted when the scalpel is inserted into the organ donor to begin the gruesome procedure of the living dissection, the organ donor responds in pain.  Not only is it impossible for the transplant surgeons to excise vital organs from a responsive, moving victim, it also adversely affects the attending nurses.  While although the organ donor’s response to pain is readily observed as the pulse and heart rate increases, at the same time, this is conveniently ignored by the transplant surgeons.  Those participating, all of them, engage in the act of pretending the organ donor is dead.  Try as they may, however, the organ donor’s obvious signs of life are being monitored and this fact adversely affects attending nurses. Upon witnessing the organ donor’s living dissection and the end result, true death of an innocent, defenseless person, it is attending nurses who are left to deal with the mutilated remains of the organ donor. Nurses who staff these theatrical performances are left with the grim reality of what truly transpired and suffer the aftermath of their traumatic experiences.  The remorse and suffering of nurses can be compared to the families of the organ donor who, after-the-fact, learn of the true death of their loved one; they are isolated in their suffering and silenced in their grief.  Nurse retention has been a problem for the organ transplant industry.  Many families of organ donors are haunted by knowledge of their loved ones’ horrific treatment and true death.  In both cases, this is well documented. The public is ignorant of these facts as well.

My son, Brandon, was administered a pain medication in addition to paralyzing drugs when the scalpel was inserted to begin his living dissection.  This fact strikes a nerve, cutting to the core of the fallacy of the so-called “dead donor rule,” “brain death.” The pain medication was withdrawn from Brandon half-way through his three and one half hour living dissection.  Why was the pain medication withdrawn?  It wasn’t done due to Brandon’s inability to feel pain, rather, all sedatives can affect respiration and circulation.  Therefore, oxygen in the blood is reduced; oxygen rich blood that is vital in maintaining healthy organs for the purpose of transplantation.  Administering pain medication or anesthesia is not part of the “donor care” protocol for this reason.  Obviously, Brandon’s reaction to the scalpel was so great, and the surgical staff so uncomfortable with this truth, pain medication was administered to appease those who were to witness his slow, methodical living dissection.

The organ donor is alive.  A cadaver does not need anesthesia.  Administering anesthesia would not legitimatize the organ donor being murdered.  My son, Brandon, was legally murdered. Under the guise of the false declaration of death, “brain death,” medical homicide was legalized, legislated and subsidized.  Providing anesthesia for the organ donor would not change this heinous crime that is routinely committed against God and His precious children.  What it has done is provide a means to expand the murder of innocent persons murdered.  Abortion and euthanasia, like organ donation, is the dehumanization and execution of the “least” among us.

Neither my family, my son, Brandon, nor I consented to this brutality and murder.  Informed consent is not part of the organ transplant industry. If it were, this empirical industry of death would collapse. I will continue to speak out to provide the public with this information in an effort to spare lives and souls.  All of the glitz and glamour of the transplant industry’s propaganda has been unveiled.  Enough is enough!

The organ donor is a living person worthy of receiving medical treatment to protect and preserve his/her life.  As an organ donor, this person is denied the inherent God-given right to “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”

Jesus Christ is the Author and Creator of all human life and the Father of all knowledge.  The knowledge of God and science must align to hold truth.  We must return to our Lord’s commands, laws and precepts; His foundational principles.  In doing so, the intellectual heresies and “lawlessness” of “brain death” and organ transplantation will cease.

May God have mercy on us!

Mrs. Bernice Jones, mother of Brandon Jones
Life Guardian Foundation
http://www.lifeguardianfoundation.org

.

Hi Brandon’s mom, Bernice, I am very grateful for your line, “Due to the drugs administered it was impossible for Brandon to breathe on his own or respond in any way.” Dr Byrne and I came to agree that when a head injured person of a certain stereotype enters a hospital, even with a family well-versed in neurology and willing to fight for treatment and survival, the targeted donor or “possible donor” will not survive. If he doesn’t die from organ harvesting he will die because he bears the evidence of someone who was targeted and prepared for organ harvesting without consent (family says no, but was only asked late in the game according to hospital policy; too late to reverse the treatment plan underway for ‘looks-like-a-donor’). The victim will also be very ill at this point and most of his harm is hospital-caused. You describe the main way that the head injured person goes down… his signs of life and particular signs and symptoms are disabled or concealed. My child was also silenced with drugs from communicating valuable information about his condition and viability. I advocate painkillers for people in my son’s state as well as donors. My child was being killed in a hospital not in an alley where there are no painkillers. I say to the hospitals, “If you are hellbent on killing this demographic at least give them painkillers.” I am NOT advocating organ donation with painkillers. I am advocating painkillers for murder that we know full well now, is going on. Why would we not help someone a little bit who is being killed if we could? I think you are saying if we can’t save their lives we should not give them relief because it would condone murder in general. That makes no sense and is far too political. Murder will always be with us. It’s now in hospitals…  Alternatively, I say to a church or other entity with means, please provide a prototype hospital where organ donation just does not happen! One where a head injured person either survives with flaws or at least dies naturally with organs intact. Right now, all we can do to better our chances is to stay home with a head injured kid. What would you say Bernice, are the real, literal options for a family today, this afternoon, who will be in that position? I’m talking about today… not in 10 years time. I would ask the commentator “RN” who was with us earlier to tell us a bit about how she endures the harvesting procedure which Bernice describes.

We believe moral problems can be clarified through reasoned debate and an
honest attempt to find common ground.

Bernice Jones, mother of Brandon Jones
Life Guardian Foundation
http://www.lifeguardianfoundation.org

“I am the way, the truth and the life.” [John 14:6]

Bernice,
I went to the Life Guardian Foundation website and it hasn’t been updated since 2010.  It is a good start, but it seems to be an orphan in cyberland. I listened to Dr. Byrne’s interview and it was compelling.  I would like to donate my time and services to this effort in whatever way I can.  As I posted before, any solution has to wrestle with the five key words: autonomy, dualism, hedonism, compassion, utility.  This ongoing debate refers to the autonomy of a living persion (the apnea test); the duality of a person (both brain life and heart life, not brain life only); the misguided compassion that medical personel offer as reason to “give life” to others; the utility of the brain injured (they see this person as worthless except for the organs that can be salvaged).  There is even a case for hedonism (that pleasure is the greatest good and pain/suffering the greatest evil).  They practice this by offering the family an easing of their pain, by positing that the life of the organ recipient releaves their suffering.

Our pro-active pro-life response must address all five areas.  Otherwise it will be weak in the knees and easy to tip over.

Hi Bernice, Moral high-ground i.e. quoting the bible as your final word is not a reasoned debate. It is useful in fleshing out your point but points in a debate have to be specifically and precisely material to the context in order to be honest in the proper sense of the word. If not, it amounts to bullying with grand, ethereal statements which basically say, “I don’t want to discuss this, I’m just here to tell you my daddy is bigger than yours.” You will get nowhere hiding behind John 14.6 with the medical establishment. Your position has to amount to more than scary, borrowed threats from heaven. Besides who are we to go assuming the “win” in a debate because we feel we are on the winning team? That’s what the transplant industry does with advertising PR and their “8 lives out of 1 rigmarole.”  It might feel secure to say we are on God’s side but that only works if people don’t laugh at you pulling at straws. We certainly scorn them for being lofty. Irritatingly, they will also have their perspective… and I suggest that dispensing with the bible is the first step in achieving the “common ground” you speak of. I am very glad that you wrote. I am incredibly relieved that your beautiful son had painkillers for part of his ordeal. He was fortunate. My child had none. To flesh out my point, Jesus on the cross was seen to be suffering. No one concealed his wounds or his murder. People who loved him were free to soothe these wounds. They didn’t say, “We had better not soothe these wounds because if we do it will condone crucifixion.” Can I ask you why you agreed to organ donation if Brandon was on a ventilator? With your views, would you not have kept him on a ventilator indefinitely? Wasn’t taking him off the ventilator “euthanasia” as you describe it in your post? I think your answer would provide a valuable resource for people about to find themselves in your position. Remember, this is about the Brandon’s of the world. It’s not about us by association.

Bernice and I are known persons who are easy to contact; on the other hand many comments have been written by someone with a name or initials not known to us or able to be contacted. If what is written is not in accordance with, or is contrary to, teachings in the Bible, it is best to ignore such writing. Truth is found in the Bible. Life is a gift. To shorten life and to hasten death by cutting out a beating heart and other vital organs from one defenseless person to give organs to persons with more power, is murder according to God’s law, but is legal according to man’s statutes. To attempt to justify such killing by acknowledging that 8 others will live is contrary to basic truth about life and death. To further attempt to “soothe” by giving painkillers does not relieve the evil of imposing death on the person from whom the organs are taken. Yes, many surviving relatives of persons from whom organs have been taken suffer for the rest of their life similar to what occurs after abortion. To clarify about the ventilator: a ventilator can assist the vital activities of breathing. A ventilator is effective to support respiration only in a living person and can push air into a cadaver without any effect on respiration . Bernice and many others were and are misled by the declaration of “brain death.” A declaration of “brain death” is not about stopping a ventilator; rather it is about continuing a ventilator until recipients of organs can be located. These comments expose more to truth. Truth will prevail and it cannot change. We welcome others to join with us at http://www.lifeguardianfoundation.org You k.now who we are, but we do not know who you are.

Hi Michael, It’s crucial, I believe, to know who one’s audience is in a debate. In the organ donation/harvesting debate there are probably 6 main audiences and all are separate. We can’t appeal to everyone at once. That way, everyone would be organ donors out of disgust and frustration at the chaotic anti-donation position. The first audience is the church itself. When the audience is the church, as I think it is for Bernice and Dr Byrne, the part of the congregation or priesthood which tolerates organ donation will tussle with the part that believes organ donation goes against life. Both sides here will use Bible quotes to sustain and support their stand. The second audience group will be that section of the public which does not know the facts about organ donation. No bible quotes are needed here, only facts. (The Bible contains ways of looking at things. It is not big on facts). The third audience consists of members of the public who love the idea of organ donation and who are passionate about it. This audience will be in favor of organ donation even if it causes their children to suffer. These people want support and gloss for a procedure which will remove a burden from them. They want the nice words and sentiments that launder an act of convenience with hope that the harvesting act “wasn’t really that bad after all.” The thing this group doesn’t want is to realize that they have done something bad, lazy and selfish. The transplant industry has put a lot of work into helping this large group rationalize what it has done and gives them lots of attention and drama. The fourth audience is those who, like me, realize we are in a no-win situation going to a hospital nowadays with a head-injured child in North America or Europe as Christians, atheists or something non-repressive or less repressive. I know that even if you say no to donation, your child will not live due to medical liability issues. The cases we hear about where the rare person survives are “miracles” only insofar as the family has some good luck. It’s statistical.  Zack Dunlap’s relative scraped his foot and as a nurse saw through what was being done to Zack. In other cases, such as the one above, the patient possesses a borderline ability to harness themselves to breathe and speak through sedation lulls. Not all head injured people are the same. In this case the patient survives because the hospital is scared, embarrassed and opportunistically jumps on the “miracle” bandwagon. The miracle is in the odds, not God hearing prayers or rewarding. Everyone prays and everyone has been good at some point but not everyone gets a miracle. I present my argument to the audience who knowing they are trapped and beaten, ask for pain relief for their loved one at the very least. I believe the medical establishment should give painkillers to this audience’s suffering head injured family members if the law states that the doctor isn’t obliged to treat for survival if he doesn’t want to. Fifth, the audience is the transplant industry itself. We direct ourselves to them and beg them to tell the truth and stop hurting the defenseless out of human decency. Lastly, as I think you do Michael, is talk to the converted. You are within a pro-life group and need to rise in your group as a person who is very active, probably more active than your peers. What you are doing is useful because one has to keep a flame alive among those who are halfway there or more. I hope that we see a prototype hospital soon which will offer neurological care without organ donation hanging over the patient: One where survival, even with flaws, or removal from life support with organs intact can be provided.

Prior to the 1967 worldwide début of the heart transplantation performed by Christiaan Barnard in Cape Town, Africa, organ transplantation enthusiasts in the USA diligently worked behind the scenes to develop a language to obscure the truth that only vital organs excised from the living can be utilized for the purpose of organ transplantation.  Having been involved with living human medical experimentation for decades, it was discovered through trial and error that within minutes of the absence of circulation, vital organs could not be excised for the utility of organ transplantation. The transplant enthusiasts knew no one would believe a patient with a beating heart, circulation and respiration was a cadaver.  They also knew, in order to advance what they envisioned as a most lucrative industry, a language was needed to obscure the truth and subvert the moral principals of our country’s institutions; theology, medical science, the sciences, law and education. Literally, what they sought was a complete social overhaul; a plot in developing a means of social engineering and this is, the demoralization of our country’s institutions from within.

The conjured term, “brain death,” did not change sound science or the principals of faithful physicians in this country.  The sciences of biology and physiology remained intact and so it was, this elite few sought not the impossible task to redefine death, rather, they sought the redefinition of life.  Self-proclaimed experts, this group called themselves a bioethics committee and began formulating a language and terminologies in an effort to reclassify living persons.  They would become the mouthpiece, so-to-speak, and the voice for all of our country’s institutions in determining the names and means in which to gauge the value of human life.  It was their expertise, the selection of words and the utility thereof that were used to advise our country’s institutions, including legislators . It was “due to the lack of knowledge” that our country’s institutions would come to rely on bioethics committees and in doing so, pervert truth and allow the dehumanization of select living persons marked for death as organ donors.  Social weeding of “the least of these” has since become common. Cultivated was the moral degeneration of our once prosperous, great nation that has been replaced with, and known as, the country of the “culture of death.” A once great nation whose motto, “One Nation Under God,” has shamefully become spiritually impoverished.

All of this has changed as people have been awakened to the truth.  Thankfully, a growing number within the medical and scientific communities in the USA and abroad have become knowledgeable of the fallacy of the coined term, “brain death,” and due to this, they have embraced the truth; that every patient labeled as an “organ donor” for the purpose of vital organ excision undergoes the process of dehumanization, living mutilation and imposed death.  The volume of evidence has mounted as scientific reviews have been published in recent years.  Well disseminated is the fact that the conjured term, “brain death,” has lacked scientific validity upon its induction. It is now known the utilization of the fictitious term, “brain death,” the propagated “dead donor rule,” and the metamorphosing of such language has, and continues to be, a means to advance the empirical multibillion-dollar industry of “organ transplantation, research and education.”
The bioethics committees in the USA have been exposed for their collaborated effort in deceit having been directly involved in both inventing and fostering the deception of “brain death.” The bioethics committees are now under the scrutiny of truth. The belief system of the bioethics committees is based on ideologies that have become a religious order of sorts.  Their driving force of the many bioethics committees in the USA has been, and continues to be, bridging alliances for the sole purpose of financial gain and power.  In light of the truth they can no longer maintain their position and this is, the continuation of cultivating names, means and ways to kill without any legal repercussions whatsoever.  They have effectively succeeded in brainwashing the USA populous and have undermined our country’s moral code of conduct written into law nearly two hundred and thirty-seven years ago: the United States Constitution. 

No more!

Never will the deception and legal murder of the innocent be considered acceptable to benefit another using any name or method.  Indeed, the moral problems that the bioethics committees so casually speak of have been clarified.  The truth has been well disseminated by Dr. Byrne.  There will be no concessions made and no common ground to be found.  Life Guardian Foundation will “stand in the gap against the evil” in defense of all God-given life from conception until true death.

I leave you with the words below, words of a bioethics committee, the Hastings Center, who realize that our Lord has been faithful as His “chosen” and “elect,” through His all-powerful Third Person, the Holy Spirit, have been obedient to His command; “ Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” 

We believe moral problems can be clarified through reasoned debate and an honest attempt to find common ground.

Mrs. Bernice Jones, mother of Brandon Jones
Life Guardian Foundation
http://www.lifeguardianfoundation.org

“I am the way, the truth and the life.” [John 14:6]

Many have participated in these Comments. We thank NCR for this opportunity. Life is a gift from the Creator to each person. Each person is living on earth until true death. We know about life from observation of persons during life. Life on earth is substantial fact of the unity of spiritual (soul) and physical (body). To maintain this unity there is interdependence of organs and systems. There are 11 biological systems in the human person of which 3 are major, namely, the circulatory and respiratory systems and the brain. No one organ or system is in charge of all other organs and systems. Death is separation of the soul-body unity resulting in the absence of life. To say that death has already occurred while the heart is beating with circulation and respiration is contrary to basic physiology, biology and common sense. The teachings of the Catholic Church about life and death cannot change. Thou shalt not kill is basic in the teachings of the Catholic Church and many other religions. To cut out an unpaired vital organ, e.g., the heart, prior to true death is killing. As evil as such killing is, cutting into the body prior to true death is vivisection. To understand this, we can envision the donor’s body as our own. Try to imagine an incision down the center of your own body from neck to chest to pubic area. Then, an electric saw splits your sternum to open your chest. Your beating heart is right there in full view for everyone on the transplant team to see. This is done without anesthetic, but only a paralyzing drug to be sure that no one in the operating room is too uncomfortable, should there be any response of your body besides the increase in heart rate and blood pressure that commonly occurs during transplantation. Yes, the operation to take organs is mutilation to benefit someone else who is more powerful, not unconscious and not paralyzed by drugs. The suggestion to have a hospital that will have expertise in neurological diseases and treatments without participating in organ transplantation seems meritorious, but every Catholic hospital ought to protect and preserve life from conception until true death already. The truth will not go away. It is not acceptable to claim moral certainty about death, while using a lethal apnea test to declare “brain death,” then hide behind a Law, a Committee, a Charter, or a Center to justify killing and mutilation.

Many have participated in these Comments. We thank NCR for this opportunity. Life is a gift from the Creator to each person. Each person on earth is living until true death. We know about life from observation of persons during life. Life on earth is substantial fact of the unity of spiritual (soul) and physical (body). To maintain this unity there is interdependence of organs and systems. There are 11 biological systems in the human person of which 3 are major, namely, the circulatory and respiratory systems and the brain. No one organ or system is in charge of all other organs and systems. Death is separation of the soul-body unity resulting in the absence of life. To say that death has already occurred while the heart is beating with circulation and respiration is contrary to basic physiology, biology and common sense. The teachings of the Catholic Church about life and death cannot change. Thou shalt not kill is basic in the teachings of the Catholic Church and many other religions. To cut out an unpaired vital organ, e.g., the heart, prior to true death is killing. As evil as such killing is, cutting into the body prior to true death is vivisection. To understand this, we can envision the donor’s body as our own. Try to imagine an incision down the center of your own body from neck to chest to pubic area. Then, an electric saw splits your sternum to open your chest. Your beating heart is right there in full view for everyone on the transplant team to see. This is done without anesthetic, but only a paralyzing drug to be sure that no one in the operating room is too uncomfortable, should there be any response of your body besides the increase in heart rate and blood pressure that commonly occurs during transplantation. Yes, the operation to take organs is mutilation to benefit someone else who is more powerful, not unconscious and not paralyzed by drugs. The suggestion to have a hospital that will have expertise in neurological diseases and treatments without participating in organ transplantation seems meritorious, but every Catholic hospital ought to protect and preserve life from conception until true death already. The truth will not go away. It is not acceptable to claim moral certainty about death, while pulling the plug, but calling this “pulling of the plug” an apnea test to declare “brain death,” then hide behind a Law, a Committee, a Charter, a TV station, a church, or a Center to justify killing and mutilation.

Just as there are cars (and people opposed to cars), there is organ donation and transplant (and people opposed to donation and transplant). However, cars aren’t ever going to be outlawed and nor is organ donation/transplant. There are far too many members of the consuming public who are in favor of cars (in my example) and organ donation or transplant. Cars are a huge part of our culture and so is organ donation and transplant. It is totally ineffective for the anti-donation movement to cry “ban this practice” because all it does is make us look stupid. One thing we cannot afford is to look naive. I believe that if people want to donate their organs or accept transplants, they should be free to do so; just as people are free to assume the risk of a terrible death each time they get into a car. The aspect I find so reprehensible is the silent stereotyping of incoming head injured. If anything should be outlawed it’s the secretive way in which the head injured are prepared as organ donors on the flimsiest basis and right from the moment they enter the hospital. Nothing is said about the more pressing intention to test their organs for donation rather than the head injured person’s own well being. There exists a prototype organ donor or ‘ideal’ for North America, Europe, Australia/NZ, South Africa and other Caucasian-rich populations. Caucasians typically like to be seen as progressive and ‘cool’ and find the organ donation thing glamorous, attractively reckless and exotic. However we are not all like that. Some of us are boring and want to live after head injury or keep our organs for our own dying process. There are exceptions to every demographic. My solution is that the organ donor-phile announce himself (or through his family) at hospital admission so that organ optimization be the treatment undertaken. Organ donation must become synonymous with “I don’t want to live after a brain injury,” so that people who DO wish to live and treated for survival, although flawed, can get treatment right away for what THEY want. It would be fine for the hospital to sit tastefully on this ‘sad’ information until late in the game IF the two treatments were the same but they are not. They are very opposite. All too often, families find out after the fact that the blood tests, urine tests, chest x-rays that their loved one got were NOT for their own well being but to check on their organs for someone else. Because the head injured patient was a white person, the demographic “who can’t be bothered with burdens,” the gamble was on that the patient was a highly probable donor. Another thing that could be done is that a family be told at the admissions desk whether the hospital is a designated “organ retrieval” hospital. This way the head injured person’s family could ask to go elsewhere if they wanted to survive with brain damage and not undergo a “worthwhile,” “nice idea” mercy killing. I really think that with the donation fetish and predilection out in the open—as something that some of us do in our culture—there will be enough organs for transplant. There is no need to resort to these awful lies and omissions to trap people for organs because of their racial type and most common habits. It’s like a war against a group and completely uncalled for.

I was just reading Carolyn Gallaher’s site “Organ Donation Exposed.” She has a link on today to a blogspot: http://rygb.blogspot.ca/2012/03/brain-death-redux-or-so-rabbi-slifkin.html  The.re are two well-expressed comments near the end of the post.  One says: “Bottom line will always be: if it’s immoral to give then it’s immoral to receive. The other one says:  “It is not ‘immoral’ to ‘give’ - and hence not immoral to receive.” This sums up what I was trying to say in my post above. Someone will always be around a fool who donates himself. The TAKER figures he is also doing a service in giving the GIVER the chance to feel great, good and moral as if there were a Judge looking on. The TAKER’s excuse is that he blames the GIVER. How did our culture get so brainlessly generous? It’s a form of mad giddiness. What do the rest of us do if we don’t want to be tarred with the same brush or systematic organ optimization protocols?
 

Fr. Rober Altier spoke about this very thing in 2006. The Dignity of the Elderly & End of Life Bio-Ethics and Father Altier Answers Tough Questions Regarding the Catholic Faith. Featuring Fr. Altier (2 CPO TV episodes on 1 CD) 2006. http://www.catholicparents.org/cpomedia.html#lifeissues

While we collectively wait for a “leg up” out of this quagmire, hopefully in the form of an entity somewhere opening up an organ donation-free head injury service, I have a new question for readers of this post. Why does it seem as if the church is more against removal of life support with organs intact than it is against organ donation itself?

Hi Dr Byrne, Sadly you fault me for not being as prominent as you and Bernice. May I respond by saying that I am a virtual organ donor whose parents have given him/her over to the organ harvesting process out of a need to get attention for themselves. I lie there, realizing that people die from all sorts on this planet i.e. what Dr Byrne calls “natural end” and am okay with the death/murder part—man’s psychology and the statistical occurrence of greed and killers within it is 100% natural. The part I am not okay with is the incredible suffering I am enduring. Please help me, I am in a hospital, I know you have loads of painkillers at your disposal. Please take mercy on me and curb my pain. Dr Byrne, you do me great insult, as a virtual Brandon, calling my utmost torment a plea for “soothings”  and criticize me for it. It is not my fault that my mother gave me over for a process she knew nothing about. Melissa Gallaher’s mother said, “Wait a minute, this doesn’t sound right.” Yes, as a virtual victim of incredible mistakes by my nearest and dearest and barbaric treatment by doctors, I cannot be contacted.

I have been the author of the last 3 posts and I apologize. I found myself in the position of having to continue a good and vital debate and also defend myself which accounts for the surplus. The debate seems over with now so I would like to tie up the loose end of “natural end” which Paul and Bernice hold dear. Being hit on the head is as old a cause of death as life itself. The momentum of falling, crashing or having a heavy tree branch land on one is natural. One’s brain swells or is stunned and breathing eventually stops. It is 100% natural. A ventilator is an invention. If a head injured patient is placed on a ventilator it is an artificial means of support. Sure it is natural that people create things but the ventilator itself is not natural. So if a person is saved by a ventilator there goes “natural end” and the person keeps living. Do Paul and Bernice disagree with that? Now if we look at organ transplant, we see the same thing. Organ transplant just like the ventilator is an invention. Why do Paul and Bernice justify the ventilator but not an organ transplant? Both serve to pull otherwise “natural end” fatalities out of the ditch. I take issue with your approach Paul and Bernice. It fails. I also don’t agree with making money out of this tragic reality as you do. Remember too, that when you are collecting donations or selling books as you are, you have to be contactable as you purport to be. I do not do that so the only thing that matters is my dialogue. It matters not who says something thought provoking as long as it’s said. I fear that you might be causing more people to donate organs since you are working very hard to give the impression that only religious people are against organ donation. The public will not want to be seen as a ‘cult category’ when they say they are non-donor. There can be non-religious reasons for not donating organs. I ask you to respect that and not to try to corner the market by coloring this choice with such esoteric dogma. I am not an organ donor. I am not religious. I believe that organ transplant is here to stay because there are people who like it. We need to work for transparency and informed choice. No one knows for sure that donors don’t suffer so they need to be given painkillers. I also ask that head injured people suffering from rising ICP be given painkillers instead of disguised as either dead or recovering in hopes of drs getting their organs. High ICP is very painful and to deny this is torture, murder and a heinous crime. Thank you.