organ donation

Death “Morally Insignificant” in Organ Donation

Thumbnail image for Death “Morally Insignificant” in Organ Donation

I have been warning for several years that many in bioethics and the organ transplant community hope to legalize killing for organs, that is, taking organs from the living. The latest example comes in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics by Canadian philosophy professor (of course!) Walter Glannon. It’s a long article and I don’t [...]

Read the full article →

Organ Request OK Before End of Life Decision

There are two protocols for donating vital organs after death. One involves brain death, and one involves removing life support, waiting for cardiac arrest, and then procuring organs after a few minutes. This post deals with the latter. I have always thought that the organ procurement administrative processes were kept strictly segregated from decision making [...]

Read the full article →

No to Human Organ Farms!

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC Here we go again! The push to transform the most ill and disabled living human bodies into so many organ farms continues among some bioethicists and within organ transplant ethical discourse. Now, an article in the American Journal of Bioethics, written by organ surgeon and [...]

Read the full article →

The Attack of the Kidney Harvesters

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC The perceived entitlement of the West sickens. We now believe our lives are so important that with biological colonialism, some of us are willing to work with criminal gangs to grab the kidneys of the vulnerable destitute. There is a shameful report out of the [...]

Read the full article →

Organ Harvesting Not “Body Mutilation”

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC I have little sympathy for a lawsuit that has been filed against the California Transplant Donor Network. Apparently, it received consent from a family for limited organ retrieval, but may have gone further than the family wanted or agreed to. And now, in the unfortunate [...]

Read the full article →

Deadly Potential of Live Organ Donation Should Preclude Market Approach

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC Some people believe that all of us have an obligation to participate in live organ donation, that is, giving one of our two kidneys or a lobe of liver. While I certainly admire those who risk their lives and health to help others, I don’t [...]

Read the full article →

Bill to Allow Organ Farming from Unconscious Patients!

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC Good grief! A Maryland state legislator has filed a bill that would allow surrogate decision makers to “donate” kidneys and liver lobes. From HB 449: THIS SUBSECTION APPLIES ONLY TO A PATIENT WHO HAS BEEN CERTIFIED UNDER § 5–606(B) OF THIS SUBTITLE TO BE IN [...]

Read the full article →

Word Engineering in the UK to Push “Presumed Consent” Organ Harvesting System Into Law

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC The UK rations health care. In the UK, people who want life-sustaining or extending treatment can be refused under rationing guidelines or physician refusal. This is the system into which the British Medical Association wants Parliament to enact a “presumed consent” to organ harvesting law [...]

Read the full article →

Yes to Organ Transplants for Developmentally Disabled

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC About a week ago, I was contacted privately about a situation that has since hit cyberspace very hard. A developmentally disabled girl, I was told, was being denied an organ transplant solely because of her disability. I made some private suggestions about what the parents [...]

Read the full article →

Comatose Man Not Really “Poised to Be an Organ Donor”

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC I bring this up because it is getting some mistaken play in the blogosphere. An apparently unconscious man was awake and aware after surgery. Great news, but why is that a national story? Because ABC more than intimated he was about to become an organ [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries