Should we adopt euthanasia to maximize our supply of available organs for transplantation?

For several decades transplant medicine has suffered from a critical shortfall in the supply of organs needed for patients with organ failure.  As a result thousands of patients die each year on waiting lists.  Presently there are over 100,000 patients awaiting donor organs in the U.S.; in 2007 alone, 18 patients per day died waiting for deceased donor organs.  The problem has given rise to significant milestones in end-of-life medicine.  For example, the shift in the 1960s from diagnosing human death in terms of the cessation of heart and lung function (cardio-pulmonary death) to neurological criteria (whole brain death) was motivated by a desire to preserve more transplantable organs.  Another idea that’s been debated over the years is “organ conscription.”  This very month, lawmakers in New York introduced an “opt out” organ conscription bill that would presume that all patients are organ donors unless they explicitly opt out on their driver’s license. [1]  Those of us whose organs are more or less healthy may not appreciate the distress that patients and their families feel knowing that their lives could be saved if only their names reach the top of the wait list.

In this piece, we would like to define the condition to which the term "vegetative state" refers, discuss certain facts about the tragic condition, introduce key ethical principles for analyzing duties that we have to persons in it, and update our readers on the current state of Catholic teaching on providing food and water to patients in a persistent vegetative state.

In an earlier piece posted here I noted that many elderly people, when interviewed by the Chicago Tribune, were horrified at the thought of lingering unconsciousness. As one of them said, "My pleasure is in being part of the human race. If that's gone, if I can't interact with other people, even if they could give me nutrition and keep me hydrated, I'm not interested in being preserved." I also noted that for many years I shared this point of view and thought that using various tubes to feed and hydrate permanently unconscious persons, i.e., those in the “permanent vegetative state,” was morally repugnant and imposed cruel burdens on them and their families.

Why burden persons in the “vegetative” state and their families by keeping them “alive” by force feeding them through various kinds of tubes?
On February 8 the Chicago Tribune interviewed elderly Catholics who were horrified at the thought of lingering unconsciousness. "My pleasure is in being part of the human race," said one of them. "If that's gone, if I can't interact with other people, even if they could give me nutrition and keep me hydrated, I'm not interested in being preserved." This reaction is quite common and reflects the views, I think, of most ordinary men and women. I believe that most ordinary persons think that it is ridiculous to keep persons in the “persistent vegetative state” alive by “force feeding” them through various kinds of tubes. They believe that doing so is futile and in addition imposes horrible burdens on those kept “alive” in this way and on their families. I fully appreciate why so many people think this way. I did so for many years myself. I will tell you why I did in a future piece for the Culture of Life Foundation. In this one I will summarize recent scientific studies that bear on some of the reasons why I changed my mind.

“Without dissecting in detail the ethical dilemma brought on by using vaccines originally developed from induced abortions, what are we as faithful Catholics to do? It is important to note that some countries have produced and are using vaccines derived from nonhuman tissue, such as the Japanese rubella vaccine grown with the use of rabbit kidney cells. Unfortunately, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not approve the use of these particular vaccines in the United States.”

As medical technology advances and the body of medical knowledge increases, the amount of medical information on the ability of a fetus to experience pain continues to grow as well. These scientific advancements have prompted medical, legal, and ethical dialogue on the following questions: At what stage in fetal development can a fetus experience pain, and what impact would this information have on women and abortion law in the United States?

Officials at the National Institutes of Health conceded that the data necessary to replicate a New Zealand study linking abortion with depression do not exist in America. The admission came in a reply to a letter from Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) seeking the NIH's "advice on searching out the best US research data on the effects of abortion on women in the United States."