[MarMema]

Dr. Robinson

Dr. Robinson is a pediatric pulmonologist at Boston Children's Hospital. And the Associate Director of the Division of Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School, where he runs the Medical Ethics Fellowship and the Program in the Practice of Scientific Investigation.

He received his BA in Philosophy at Princeton University, his MD from Emory University, and his MPH at the Harvard School of Public Health. He was a Fellow in the Program in Ethics and the Professions at the Kennedy School of Government in 1994-95 and 1998-99.

He is actively involved in the CF clinic at Children's Hospital, where he also serves as associate ethicist in the Office of Ethics. Dr. Robinson's academic interests focus on the ethical issues that arise in chronic illness, organ transplantation, and clinical research.

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[xzins]

This should be called the "Rich Man's Organ Farming Rule" or maybe the "Rich Doctor's Cost Reduction Rule" or "The Dying Patient's Don't-Carry-a-Donor-Card-into-an-appendectomy-if-Bill-Gates-needs-a-Heart Rule"

[nepdap]

Ohhhh, where to begin?

"Imminently dying" or "neurologically devastated" are so hard to prove, not bright-line designations. Who has not known stories of people who were thought to be virtually dead, who rallied, sometimes for years more of life? How "devastated" is enough?

Granted, we have mechanisms for deciding when to "pull the plug" now. But it is hard enough to determine when someone is "dead," let alone trying to decide if that person is sufficiently nearly dead.

Close counts in horseshoes, but not in dying.

[Marie]

We're lost.

[lorrainer]

Soooo....this guy's organs can be harvested right now? Not much brain activity there. Why wait?

[LadyDoc]

This is why I don't have a "organ donor" on my driver's license.

The next step is to allow "organ donation" from "higher brain death". Then they wouldn't have to starve Terry ...they could just take her organs out and kill her that way...

[Libertina]

We propose that individuals who desire to donate their organs and who are either neurologically devastated or imminently dying should be allowed to donate their organs, without first being declared dead.
Exactly how "not dead" should they be? Comatose or just lying down resting? /s More steps in a WRONG, Godless direction.

[BlessedBeGod]

We propose that individuals who desire to donate their organs and who are either neurologically devastated or imminently dying should be allowed to donate their organs, without first being declared dead.

Over my dead body. Literally.

[exDemMom]

I've written "Not an organ donor" on the back of my driver's license.

I do not think it is ethical to actively hope for someone to die so that an organ transplant can take place; this article describes something far worse, hastening death for someone who might even be curable, for the purpose of harvesting "spare parts."

[hocndoc]

I not only have the organ donor box checked on my driver's license, my very detailed Advanced Directive specifies that none of my cells may be used in any sort of cloning, nuclear transfer or reproductive effort. And, I ask not to be given hydration or nutrition if I can't respond (actually, I wrote that I'd want any artificial support, feeding tube or IV withheld or removed if I can't read, argue, and interact -- to please let me go to Heaven). However, that's a very personal decision, based on my belief that I have the right to refuse intervention --- not that anyone else has the right to refuse to make that decision for me -- and my security in what is waiting after I die.

The author of this proposal is attempting to redirect the brain-death discussion from a priority of determination of irreversible brain stem death (which is inevitably followed by cessation of adequate heart beat).

No medical professional should allow the philosophy to be perverted from recognizing natural death to an opportunity for organ harvesting.

[wizardoz]

Finally, we point out parallel developments, both domestically and abroad, that reflect both implicit and explicit support for our proposal.

Uh huh. Like "France let 14,000 of their elderly die from lack of air conditioning, so we're pretty sure they wouldn't mind. And then there's the Holocaust...."

[LadyDoc]

thanks for the 'heads up"

[MarMema]

ping