Thread by @FamedCelebrity

New Definition Of Death To Increase Organ Harvest Bounty🧵

Sandeep Jauhar: “Death is not simply a biological fact, but it’s also a social choice.” Death has become a social choice? He continues: “To increase the number of donor organs, we should expand the definition of death.”

This op-ed will, as you will see, show the extreme dangers of putting doctors in charge of non-medical questions, such as what death is and what is allowable in medicine. Memorizing bone names confers no moral or ethical advantage or philosophical or theological insight.

“Medicine”, Jauhar tells us, today declares a death on heart stoppage or when “the brain has ceased to function”. But there have been many cases where “brain dead” people come back to life. Which Jauhar does not mention.

There are so many examples from which to draw that I am sure you have heard of the phenomenon. Remember George Pickering?

And many more (links in the article).

Doctors grab organs from those declared “brain dead”. Now you can argue in each of the cases above “true” “brain death” was not present, and instead mistakes by doctors were made. But then you are arguing doctors can make mistakes in classifying whether somebody is “brain dead.”

They have to grab organs from those declated “brain dead” because, Jauhar says, “organs from people who die [by heart stopping] are often damaged and unsuited for transplantation.” This is true.

Today they take people who docs declare are in “irreversible coma” etc. and not “brain dead”. They are wheeled “into an operating room” and any life support removed. If the heart stops, they wait five minutes and begin hacking.

The solution, we believe, is to broaden the definition of brain death to include irreversibly comatose patients on life support…So long as the patient had given informed consent for organ donation, removal would proceed without delay. “

We have already seen cases of people declared “irreversibly comatose” who have woke back up. In those cases of mistaken diagnosis but removed organs, then doctors are purposely killing people. How many of these unfortunate killings are worth one fresh spleen?

As we have already seen with doctor-killings (Canada, The Netherlands in particular), the definitions of eligibility have slipped on down the slippery slope, becoming broader with time.

The temptation to make the diagnosis of “irreversibly comatose” in marginal cases will not always be resisted, especially when a prospective donor looks to have a juicy kidney.

This is precisely why you cannot trust doctors to do philosophy. Or any scientist in the grip of the Machine Metaphor.

More!
wmbriggs.substack.com/p/new-definiti…