Posted on 03/10/2016 8:53:53 AM PST by wagglebee
UNITED KINGDOM, March 10, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – British organ transplant specialists want the country's National Health Service to encourage parents considering aborting their disabled unborn children to carry them to term so their parts can be harvested.
While proponents say the harvesting won't happen until the baby is dead, that could mean "brain-dead," raising the prospect of other bodily functions being intentionally terminated at the optimum moment for removal of organs.
The practice has generated strong criticism from ethicists, and though pro-life advocates appreciate that officials would encourage parents to carry their children to term, they are criticizing the underlying idea that reduces babies to spare parts.
Dr. Anthony McCarthy, a bioethicist and the education director of the London-based Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), told LifeSiteNews, "Babies should be spared abortion because they are babies – not because they are useful to others if taken to term."
The issue was raised at a British Transplantation Society meeting in Glasgow last week, reported in the Daily Mail. There transplant surgeon Niad Ahmad reported that health officials would soon be trained to approach parents who have decided to abort their unborn children because of defects to carry them to term for harvesting. "A number of staff in the NHS are not aware that these organs can be used. They need to be aware. They can be transplanted. They work. And they work long term," Dr. Ahmad reportedly told the gathering.
The opportunity to harvest the organs of stillborn babies has grown due to growing pro-life sentiments among parents. "We are seeing more women saying, 'I don't think it is right to terminate.' It is then a case of having conversations with NHS staff about the options."
Currently, staff wait for parents who know that their child will survive birth only briefly to raise the possibility of organ donation. The new policy would direct staff to be proactive and raise the issue as soon as parents learn of their child's fatal disabilities. The argument raised in Glasgow is that three people die in Great Britain every day waiting for an organ transplant, while the waiting list is 7,000 people long. Many of them are children.
According to the Daily Mail, "about 230 babies with anencephaly – where most of the brain fails to develop – are aborted every year in Great Britain." In officials' eyes, these are prime prospects for organ donation, especially to other children, while some organs such as kidneys cannot be transplanted to children but are big enough to go to young adults.
Until last year, babies who died younger than two months of age could not be donors, but guidelines have changed, and the NHS Blood and Transplant division has struck a committee to plan how to encourage parents to donate their children's organs.
McCarthy said that while SPUC is not opposed to organ transplantation from stillborn babies per se, they are concerned that the push for organs would distract parents or the health care workers from their duty to care for the unborn and newborn child.
"It is one thing for the baby to be treasured during life, then used for organ donation after he or she has truly died and the parents have said goodbye. It is something quite different for the baby to be treated as valuable only as means to an end, not as someone's son or daughter whose life is precious, however brief that life may be," said Dr. McCarthy.
He also raised the concern that the pressure for viable organs would lead to ethically questionable behavior toward the dying child in order to optimize the viability of the transplanted organ. McCarthy called this " lethal discrimination against the unborn" and likened it to how the health system already treats the disabled and terminally ill.
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This story has been distorted.
The NHS is asking mothers whose children are still born or survive a short while to donate organs. In short, like any organ donation.
holy crap. the sooner we abort these liberal idiots the better. Someone get me a coat hanger and a baseball bat
NHS denies reports women will be pressurised to have babies so their organs can be harvested
NHS categorically dismisses claims it was looking into proposals for ‘baby organ harvesting’
http://www.itv.com/news/2016-03-06/nhs-categorically-dismisses-organ-harvest-story/
No comment can adequately adress the depravity of the NHS.
Bye, GB.
We, however, are not far behind.
Calling Doctor Mengele, please pick up the red courtesy phone.
Well...looks like Hitler conquered Britain after all.
Nothing to see here at NHS, move along.
Hey maybe now Moloch worshippers in the UK can encourage women to carry to term so they can practice their religion of baby sacrifice....
Otherwise you are RACIST!!!
No problem with NHS criticism, as long as its fact based and valid.
OTT nonsense.
They chopped up the original article from The Mail and made it sound worse than reality.
I detest being manipulated. And the article is very much trying to tug at our heartstrings by showing a beautiful healthy baby at the top when that is not what the NHS is proposing at all, if anything.
NHS Blood and Transplant said: ‘Under no circumstances would our staff or anybody else within the NHS pressure women to continue with a pregnancy solely for the possibility of organ donation.’
The NHS is speaking specifically of children that will not live beyond a few days outside of the womb. If that is truly the case, then I would liken this to someone on life support who could donate their organs to save lives.
"I am a Christian and meet regularly with other Christians to study Gods word. My faith convinces me the prophecies in the Holy Bible are true. I believe in the sanctity of life, oppose abortion and want to preserve marriage as the union of a man and woman. I am a veteran with skills and knowledge from military training and combat. I own several firearms, frequently shoot them, buy ammunition and consider efforts to infringe on my Second Amendment rights to be wrong and unconstitutional. I frequently support the sovereignty of the United States, am deeply concerned about our economy, increasingly higher taxes, illegal immigration, soaring unemployment and actions by our government that will bury my children beneath a mountain of debt. Apparently, all this makes me a 'right-wing extremist.' At least that's what it says in the April 7, 2009 'assessment' issued by the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security."
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