First Things
2009-11-06
September 30, 2009 — Oh, oh: Here they come.
Nature is one of the top science journals in the world. What is published within its pages matter. And now, it has editorialized to loosen standards of declaring brain death so that more organs can be harvested. From the editorial:
The law seems admirably straightforward: “An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead.” In practice, unfortunately, physicians know that when they declare that someone on life support is dead, they are usually obeying the spirit, but not the letter, of this law. And many are feeling increasingly uncomfortable about it.
Then, they should stop doing it! Cutting corners is a profound betrayal of the living patient falsely declared dead, of the organ transplant system because it destroys public trust, and of medicine as a whole because it turns doctors from healers into death causers.