On the Morality of Organ Donation and Harvesting

by Timothy Sica

Everyone who has taken their driver's permit test, has been urged to choose an “Organ and Tissue donor Card/License”. If one says yes to this, they may save a life in the near future. However that comes with a cost. In the event of a car accident, bad injury, or sickness the doctors could harvest your organs if they see no hope of recovery. According to the “facts” which you were given, your organs would only be donated if you were already dead.

When can a donated organ be harvested? When, and only when, the patient is still alive, as the blood has to be warm, and everything must be able to function properly for the future “owner”. “Unpaired Vital Organs such as the heart or the liver after a declaration of brain death, must be harvested while the heart is beating; there is normal blood pressure and temperature; there are normal salt and water balances and many internal organs and systems are functioning to maintain the unity of the body. During the hour it takes to remove a heart for transplant, the heart is still beating. Only a beating heart is acceptable for transplant. Such determination of brain death is based on absence of functioning of the brain. A measure of life is the continuing hypothalamic function which controls body temperature. If the patient is warm then that part of the brain is functioning.” (1)

If you were taken to a hospital for a serious injury and were in a coma, within the first 24 hours if the doctors saw no improvement, they could make a life or death decision. At this point it is up to the doctor's judgment, on whether you are “brain dead” or living. Now, since you have that Organ Donor card which you signed and two people witnessed, the doctors can legally harvest your organs, killing you in the process. (2)

What about those “facts” you looked up? Sadly, they are not entirely true. They are true if you believe that an unconscious person is not alive, and thus no longer a human. At the time the organs are harvested, you in fact would be alive, sensitive to pain, and would have all the other things every other living human being does. “Heartbeat and blood pressure rise as the surgeon cuts into the supposedly dead organ donor, a similar reaction to a healthy person being attacked with a knife. Some doctors recommend administering anaesthetic prior to harvesting, to prevent pain to supposedly "brain dead" donors, despite the donor officially declared dead.

Organ donors get inferior treatment than organ keepers. This happens because treatment to preserve harvestable organs increases the injuries and may even kill the patient. As the treatment is for the organ, not the patient. An organ recipient's body experiences the transplanted organ as a malignant invader to be killed. Doctors administer drugs to stop this rejection which then creates similar immune deficiency diseases to AIDS victims.” (3)

In order to better understand all this, it would be wise to understand what the term “brain dead” means. Brain dead has over 32 definitions according to doctors (4), and any of them are the correct definition. Therefore it is entirely up to the doctor to decide when someone is brain dead. Many people who have been declared brain dead have recovered.

For someone to be alive at all, their brain has to be functioning to some extent. If the body of a "brain dead" person is warm, it means that something is still working in the brain, thus showing that even though their whole brain may not be working, some of it is, thus making them not "brain dead". Just because it seems like they would never recover enough to think or care for themselves, people are often considered brain dead. However, if a single thing is functioning, like sleep brain waves, they are not "brain dead" even if there is no pulse or heartbeat. This proves that there is not actually any such thing as “brain dead”. It is a term to confuse people, and dehumanize those who would be killed in the process of organ harvesting.

If you happen to be taking a driver's test, or getting a license, make sure not to choose the “donor” option. As one can see from all the information above, they do not harvest your organs when you are dead. Though on the paperwork it says that they will not harvest until given permission by a guardian, spouse, parent, or lawyer it is often the other way around. Meaning that they will harvest the organs even against any of the above listed wishes.

Organ harvesting, brain death, and organ donation (5) are a great danger and threat to America. In some ways, it is a greater threat than abortion. In the sense that most people do not know what any of these terms mean, whereas with abortion, most people have some idea of what it is. How did we get to this point? How is it that the government, hospitals, and news all lie about this? (as well as many other things). The answer is simple as well as clear. All of these great attacks on humanity are due to the steady attacks on the family.

Pornography, contraception, abortion, and many other things have helped demoralize America to the point where euthanasia, assisted suicide, and organ harvesting are considered normal, as well as just. It is time for “The Land of the Free” to wake up. If it is legal and right to kill an unborn infant, all other stages of life will follow (as is seen with organ donation) until everyone who is considered “useless, unwanted, or even disliked” will be in danger of death.

1. http://www.life.org.nz/euthanasia/euthanasiaethicalkeyissues/organ-harvesting/
2. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Organ+Donation+Law
3. http://www.life.org.nz/euthanasia/euthanasiaethicalkeyissues/organ-harvesting/
4. http://www.life.org.nz/euthanasia/euthanasiaethicalkeyissues/organ-harvesting/
5. to be clear here: Donating of paired organs does not kill someone, for instance a liver. Donating of bone marrow does not kill someone. Just some examples. It is good to donate, wrong to donate by killing a person in the process

Timothy Sica is student who attends online classes from Mother of Divine Grace School in Ojai, California. He resides with his family in North Eastern, Pennsylvania.     He attended the National Right to Life Convention in 2016 which changed his life and awakened in him the desire to save as many lives as possible.