[wagglebee]

The recent case-study significantly bolsters the argument of opponents of the “brain-death” criterion for organ donation, who fear that severely brain-injured patients are seen more and more as living organ farms than as persons needing care and attention.

Unfortunately, the Culture of Death DOES see all of us as organ farms.

[wagglebee]

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[wagglebee]

Ping!

[mtbopfuyn]

There's some truth in that research. Judge Greer has been brain dead for years, yet is still making mindboggling rulings.

[ozoneliar]

At one point I had doubts that clones could ever be used as organ farms, but now who knows. If cloning is ever viable who knows how it will be used?

[narses]

+

If you want on (or off) this Catholic and Pro-Life ping list, let me know!

[GhostSoldier]

Where was this info when Terri Schiavo needed it?

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Huge error in the first paragraph, trying to conflate a vegetative state with brain death. Those are different things. Brain death means there is no brain activity. In a vegetative state there is brain activity -- even wakefulness -- but no apparent awareness of one's surroundings.

No doctor would declare a person in a vegetative state to be "brain dead."

[machogirl]

the brain-death squad already was on watch before my dad was transferred from another hospital and then at this "world renowned" hospital, they refused to show me the cat scans that would have "proven" to me that there was "complete" brain death.

[ahayes]

What does this have to do with brain death? Brain death involves zip, zero, and nada brain activity. With those in a vegetative state some brain activity remains. From this page:

PVS should be distinguished from from three related neurologic conditions: brain death, the "locked-in" syndrome, and coma. With brain death (sometimes called whole brain death) the entire brain including the brainstem is irreversibly and completely destroyed. If brain death precedes injury to the rest of the body, all other organ systems fail within days. It is not possible to keep the body alive indefinitely with machines in cases of brain death.{16} Harvard Medical School criteria for diagnosing brain death include unresponsiveness, absence of spontaneous respiration, and loss of brainstem reflex activity.{17} In 1981 the President's Commission report proposed an updated version of the Harvard criteria.{18} While there have been some criticisms of these, the modified Harvard criteria are the ones most widely accepted for determining brain death.{19}

An EEG can easily tell if a person is brain-dead or not, and an EEG can easily tell if a person is in a true permanently unconscious vegetative state or a state more similar to the "locked-in" state (where the patient is conscious but unable to move or speak). Fortunately EEGs are relatively cheap and readily available.

[RightWhale]

the ethical determination of “brain-death”,

It's a legal determination of the state.

[Outland]

I think the criteria for brain death is simple... liberals, socialists, greens, progressives, communists and Islamofascists. There should be plenty of spare organs to go around.

[RobRoy]

"Can we have your liver then?"