As a Seattle resident, it took me a bit longer to recover from the play-offs and start posting again. However, I see this thread has degraded into arguing about state culture, so I will respond only to correct Sooner’s misconception.
Justitia I read the paper you claim to have written. Very interesting stuff. I especially like how you (I'll just assume you're telling the truth) and your colleagues point out that...
Sooner, I never claimed to have written the paper from which you posted quotes. In fact I was very clear that I was posting a quote from a paper I wrote in which I relied upon the cited paper to support my contention.
If you struggle to understand my footnote usage, it’s no wonder you misunderstood the conclusions of the paper I used as a supporting citation.
From the title alone, it should be clear that the authors were challenging organ retrieval after “circulatory death.” (Circulatory death=the heart will never again work on its own (perhaps due to heart attack) but the person isn’t necessarily brain dead). Since some hospitals retrieve organs as little as 75 seconds after they allow the machine-supported heart to stop beating in patients who have experienced only circulatory death, it leaves us to wonder if the non-brain dead donor might actually feel the pain (harm); that’s why the practice is controversial.
The controversial University of Michigan protocol: http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/10002
Nevertheless, their support of brain-dead being sufficient for death is noted in their second argument as to why circulatory death may not be enough: “The patient is not dead at the moment of [circulatory death] organ retrieval because brain death is not rigorously demonstrated.” (emphasis added). The reverse of their statement is that retrieval is O.K when brain death is demonstrated.
Sooner'squote from the paper: Obedience to the DDR has induced policymakers to include
andmaintain irreversible loss of brain function as a legal criterion
for declaring death despite controversies and some
evidence that these individuals do not fulfil any definition
of death."
In the above quote, they are referencing the most morally stringent definition of death: the absolute cessation of all bodily function for a certain period of time, i.e., old-time death, e.g., the cold body sitting on a slab for a few hours. ANY function, including reptilian-brain functions controlling temperature regulation, is enough to call a person “living,” Instead, they suggest the following:
Sooner's quote from the paper: We believe that justifying the procurement of vital
organs from severely injured patients on an explicit moral
basis, instead of supporting it on the pseudo-objective
claim that “they are really dead,” is an honest way to
acknowledge the unavoidable uncertainty of the vital
status of so-called “brain-dead” and “circulatory-dead”
donors."
They argue that it is better to use an "explicit moral justification" than try to explain science to people, and they propose we tell families the following: 1) At some level your family member is ‘alive,’ (reptilian brain) 2) but they will never be sentient again (any important part of their brain is gone), 3) however, their brain is not functioning enough to feel pain (they are beyond “harm), 4 so it is morally justifiable to take their organs even if we want to go so far as to call them ‘living.’
In sum, they are making an argument that euthanasia to obtain organs is morally justified in certain circumstances, and policy-makers should quit babying the public and tell them that.
After this thread, I highly disagree with their faith in the public to unemotionally process much of anything related to death.
Quotes Sooner chose NOT to copy:
Virtually all modern countries currently accept a “bifurcated legal standard” to declare death: irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory function and irreversible loss of all brain function (Capron 1999, 7).
There is general agreement that brain-dead individuals are beyond harm. This implies that if brain-dead individuals were considered to be alive, organ procurement from these patients would still not necessarily threaten the fundamental need to preserve the interests of the donor at the moment of organ procurement. (See my above summation of their argument)
However, organ procurement from brain-dead patients is widespread and is for the most part a fairly uncontroversial practice, certainly due to the fact that neurological death [brain-dead] remains a reliable criterion for establishing a prognosis of irreversibility. Where controversy is now focused is in cases of donation after circulatory death (Bernat 2010). (emphasis added).
