Important Position Paper on Criteria for Brain Death and Organ Donation: A Call to Action

NancyValko.com/ | Nancy Valko, RN | March 9, 2024

Peder Matthias Olsen (1849-1896) death certificateI am a signatory on this statement and it deserves to be read and shared. Although the statement touches on Catholic teaching, it is primarily is about science and ethics. Please read the statement and press release.

The statement, “Catholics United on Brain Death and Organ Donation: A Call to Action”, was published on February 27, 2024. It was prepared by Joseph Eble, a physician and President of the Tulsa Guild of the Catholic Medical Association; John Di Camillo, an ethicist of The National Catholic Bioethics Center; and Peter Colosi, a philosophy professor at Salve Regina University.

As a nurse, I have been writing about this topic for years, most recently in my May, 2021 blog “Rethinking Brain Death and Organ Donation” and my experience serving on an ethics committee at a hospital where a patient “failed” one of the hospital’s brain death tests and thus could not have her organs removed.

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Ethical questions on body donation after medically assisted death

MedicalXpress.com | by McMaster University | 4-1-2019

Dissection of a Cadaver.jpg
Dissection of a cadaver
The legalization of medical assistance in dying (MAID) in Canada has resulted in some people choosing to donate their bodies to anatomy programs, but it has raised profound ethical issues, says McMaster University's head of anatomy.

The use of MAID, also known as 'active voluntary euthanasia' or 'voluntary euthanasia', is legally obtainable in Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United States, and some parts of Australia.

As a result, Wainman said, there are issues about the appropriateness of accepting or using MAID body donations; communication with donors including consenting processes, and the transparency surrounding MAID donation with staff, faculty and students. Read more.

Angel fish
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...and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind ... the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind ...the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. -Genesis 1

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A SistersSite eBook

Flesh and Bone and The Protestant Conscience is an e-book on Amazon.com. It is 99¢ and in the Amazon lending library as well. It is also available here in PDF format. The book description follows.

Would you let your conscience be your guide?

Does God care if the skin and bone of the dead are passed along to the living for medical uses? Is organ donation OK with God? Should you sign a Living Will?

Did you know that dead organ donors are often anesthetized before their organs are removed? Do you know the current definition of death? The conscience cannot function without facts.

As we ponder the ethics of in vitro fertilization, stem cell research and man-made chimeras, our thoughts trail off. How then should we live? (Ez 33:10)

How should a Christian think about euthanasia by starvation when doctors and the state attorney general all agree it is time to withhold feeding from a brain injured patient? Some things are family matters, but someday it may be our family.

Here is a small book to help you think about whether you want to sign your driver's license, donate a kidney, cremate your loved one, and many other practical questions that may arise in the course of your healthcare decisions or watch over others.

It offers a special focus on the doctrine of the Resurrection that is related to such decisions. Sunday School classes and Bible Study groups could use this book to facilitate discussion about the issues covered.