The recent trend of using social media to encourage organ donors reminded me that I need to get on the ball and rescind my organ donor status. I've already informed my wife and family of my intentions not to donate my organs, and I suppose I'm letting you all know through this blog. All that remains, as far as I know, is to inform the Oregon DMV.
In principle, I'm just fine with donating my organs. If I'm gone, after all, I'm not going to use them anymore; they may as well go to someone who can use them, assuming that someone can use a fatty liver, pickled kidneys, and nearly blind eyeballs.
However, recently it has come to my attention that the medical community is
taking liberties with the definition of when someone goes. Quoting NPR:
For decades, organ donation has been guided by something called the "dead donor rule."
"We have this idea that you must be dead first — so before your organs can be removed, we agree that you are dead," said Leslie Whetstine, a bioethicist at Walsh University in Ohio.
That probably sounds pretty obvious. But defining "dead" turns out to be pretty complicated. It turns out, there are two ways to declare someone dead. For decades, the main way has been "brain death."
Yeah. That's the definition I use, too. If my brain is gone, I figure the soul is gone, the personality is gone, everything that is really important to me is gone, it's organ harvesting time. I figured that part was obvious. Well, not so fast.
But transplant advocates have revived another definition in recent years. It's had several names, including "donation after cardiac death (DCD)" and "donation after circulatory death." It says: It's OK if donors initially may still have some brain activity. But in this case, death requires "an irreversible cessation of circulation and heartbeat and breathing and no intervention will be done to restore it," Bernat said. "So it is permanent."
...
"The problem is, it's not at all clear that donors after circulatory determination of death are truly dead," Halpern said.
Especially because, as it turns out, some terminal patients are put on heart-lung machines to keep donor organs fresh. Which might, also, keep the brain alive. Which brings me to the point where I said, "fuck this."
To address this issue, the Michigan doctors insert a balloon to block blood from getting to the brain.
Sorry, but as far as I'm concerned, you do that, you're murdering me for my organs. Thus, the answer is "no" until they sort this question out once and for all, and conclude that my organs are mine, all mine, until my brain dies on its own. If you're not willing to do that, then I'm not willing risk my last moments being a pure nightmare.
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