Organ donation

Basic issues
 Organ donation
• Organ donation is the donation of biological tissue
or an organ of the human body, from a living or
dead person to a living recipient in need of a
transplantation.

• Transplantable organs and tissues are removed in

a surgical procedure following a determination,
based on the donor's medical and social history, of
which are suitable for transplantation. Such
procedures are termed allotransplantations, to
distinguish them from xenotransplantation, the
transfer of animal organs into human bodies.
Xenotransplantation
• Xenotransplantation, or the transfer of animal
(usually pig) organs into human bodies,
promises to eliminate many of the ethical
issues, while creating many of its own.

• While xenotransplantation promises to

increase the supply of organs considerably,
the threat of organ transplant rejection and
the risk of xenozoonosis, coupled with general
anathema to the idea, decreases the
functionality of the technique. Some animal
rights groups oppose the sacrifice of an
animal for organ donation and have launched
campaigns to ban them.

• [also two religions consider pigs unclean, and

at least three more are vegetarians and believe
Moving towards donation
• Once a donor has been evaluated and consent
obtained, provisional allocation of organs
commences. UNOS developed a computer
program that automatically generates donor
specific match lists for suitable recipients based
on the criteria that the patient was listed with.

• Organ coordinators enter donor information into

the program and run the respective lists. Organ
offers to potential recipients are made to
transplant centers to make them aware of a
potential organ. The surgeon will evaluate the
donor information and make a provisional
determination of medical suitability to their
recipient.
 Procurement
• Brain death may result in legal death, but still with the
heart beating, and with mechanical ventilation all other
vital organs may be kept completely alive and functional,
providing optimal opportunities for organ transplantation.

• Most organ donation for organ transplantation is done in

the setting of brain death. The non-living donor is kept on
ventilator support until the organs have been surgically
removed. If a brain-dead individual is not an organ donor,
ventilator and drug support is discontinued and cardiac
death is allowed to occur.

• In the United States, where since the 1980s the Uniform

Determination of Death Act has defined death as the
irreversible cessation of the function of either the brain or
the heart and lungs, the 21st century has seen an order-of-
magnitude increase of donation following cardiac death.
 DCD Controversy
• In 1995, only one out of 100 dead donors in the
nation gave their organs following the declaration
of cardiac death. That figure grew to almost 11
percent in 2008, according to the Scientific
Registry of Transplant Recipients.

• That increase has provoked ethical concerns about

the interpretation of "irreversible" since "patients
may still be alive five or even 10 minutes after
cardiac arrest because, theoretically, their hearts
could be restarted, [and thus are] clearly not dead
because their condition was reversible
 Distribution
 Distribution varies slightly between different
organs but is essentially very similar. When
lists are generated many factors are taken into
consideration; these factors include: distance
of transplant center from the donor hospital,
blood type, medical urgency, wait time, donor
size and tissue typing.
 Transplantation
• Location of a transplant center with respect to a donor
hospital is given priority due to the effects of Cold
Ischemic Time (CIT). Once the organ is removed from the
donor, blood no longer perfuses through the vessels and
begins to starve the cells of oxygen (ischemia). Each organ
tolerates different ischemic times. Hearts and lungs need
to be transplanted within 4–6 hours from recovery, liver
about 8–10 hours and pancreas about 15 hours; kidneys
are the most resilient to ischemia.

• Kidneys packaged on ice can be successfully transplanted

24–36 hours after recovery. Developments in kidney
preservation have yielded a device that pumps cold
preservation solution through the kidneys vessels to
prevent Delayed Graft Function (DGF) due to ischemia.
Research and development is currently underway for heart
and lung preservation devices, in an effort to increase
distances procurement teams may travel to recover an
organ.
 Organ shortfall
• The demand for organs significantly surpasses the
number of donors everywhere in the world. There
are more potential recipients on organ donation
waiting lists than organ donors.

• In particular, due to significant advances in

dialysis techniques, patients suffering from end-
stage renal disease (ESRD) can survive longer
than ever before. Because these patients don't die
as quickly as they used to, and as kidney failure
increases with the rising age and prevalence of
high blood pressure and diabetes in a society, the
need especially for kidneys rises every year.
 Wait list
• In the United States, about 108,000 people are on
the waiting list, although about a third of those
patients are inactive and could not receive a donated
organ. Wait times and success rates for organs differ
significantly between organs due to demand and
procedure difficulty.

• Three-quarters of patients in need of an organ

transplant are waiting for a kidney, and as such
kidneys have much longer waiting times. At the
Oregon Health and Science University, for example,
the median patient who ultimately received an organ
waited only three weeks for a heart and three
months for a pancreas or liver — but 15 months for
a kidney, because demand for kidneys substantially
outstrips supply.
Reasons for discrepancies
• A lists of countries ordered by organ donation
ranking created by the International Register of
Organ Donation and Transplantation shows
Spain, Belgium, France, and Italy — which all
have "presumed consent" laws on organ
donation, where everyone is considered a donor
unless they specify otherwise — in the top in the
top five.

• In contrast the USA — which practices an "opt

in" consent law where their citizens provide
express and informed agreement to donate
organs and tissues in the event of their death —
is also in the top five ahead of many other
countries that are "opt in".
 Questions
 What prevents people from becoming
organ donors? If you are a donor, why
did you decide to become one? If you
aren’t, why not?
Organ donation
Judaism
 Preliminary questions
 First, from the perspective of Jewish law, does a
Jew have an obligation to donate his kidney to
another fellow Jew?

 Second, if such a medical procedure is allowable,

ought he or she be compensated for this
transplantable organ?

 Are these considerations grounded in halakha or in

the writings of secular contemporary thinkers
which serve as the source for arriving at a
halakhically principled position?
 Continued…
 May a person sacrifice his life by donating an
organ to his fellow Jew if it is needed to save his
life?

 Is a donor obligated to endanger himself, i.e., to

undergo significant medical risk, in order to save
the life of another?

 In the absence of significant medical risk, is one

obligated to sacrifice a limb in order to save
another individual?
 Two ways to support
 Jewish teachings provide two compatible
ways of thinking of organ sale as a religious
duty.
 Jews may think of organ donation as either
the imperative “pikku'ah nefesh, i.e., the
saving of human life versus
 habbala i.e., wounding for the sake of
rescue.
 Explanation
 In the first case - the saving of human life -
the philosophy behind living organ donation
would be permitted because human life is
saved
 in the second case- wounding for the sake
of rescue- the operation itself is permitted
even though it does “wound,” because it
simultaneously saves.
 Law and organs
 In the Talmud, saving a life supersedes
most everything, and many commandments
may be transgressed if the goal is to save a
life.”
 [This is reflected in Jesus’ teachings on
healing on the Sabbath, that it is better to
save life than to follow other rules [Mark
3:4].]
 Talmud
 The Talmud views the provisions regulating the duty
to rescue as a resolution of the interplay between a
positive and a negative commandment emerging
from two different spheres of Jewish law.

 “From where do we know that if a man sees his

neighbor drowning . . . he is bound to save him?
From the verse, ‘Do not stand idly by the blood of
your neighbor.’…” (Sanhédrin 73a).
 Rabbinical commentary on
safety
 Even if there is a slight doubt as to the danger,
such as [the rescuer] saw someone drowning in the
sea or being attacked by robbers or by a wild beast,
in all of which [circumstances] there is some doubt
as to the danger [posed to him], yet he must save

 If the doubt tends towards certainty, he [the

rescuer] does not need to sacrifice himself to save
his fellow Jew, and even where there is a significant
doubt, he does not need to do so, for who said that
your fellow's blood is redder?
 In sum:
 Because the gift of life is sacred, the Jews, permit
organ donation.

 Even though there is risk, the transplantation is

permitted.

 However, there exists no obligation to donate a

kidney; it is an act of piety, i.e., middat hasidut.

 And kidney selling violates one's humanity and

impairs one's rationality and autonomy.
 Questions
 Some Orthodox Jews will not permit people
with tattoos into their cemeteries because
of how it defaces the body. Do you think the
same should hold true for organ donation?
Why or why not?
Organ donation
Christianity
 Life as value
 Thomas Aquinas’ natural law states that
humans are inclined to preserve life, which
is a good. This preservation of life has the
highest value and can also be stated
negatively in prohibitions of killing
 Because the gift of life is sacred, Christians
permit organ donation.
 Catholic support
 The Catechism of the Catholic Church
states, “organ transplants conform with the
moral law and can be meritorious if the
physical and psychological dangers and
risks incurred by the donor are
proportionate to the good sought for the
recipient.”
 Pope’s perspective
 Pope Pius XII in 1956 stated:
 A person may will to dispose of his body and to destine
it to ends that are useful, morally irreproachable and
even noble, among them the desire to aid the sick and
suffering . . .
 Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter, Evangelium
Vitae (The Gospel of Life) said:
 These are the most solemn celebration of the Gospel of
life, for they proclaim it by the total gift of self . . . A
particularly praiseworthy example of such gestures is
the donation of organs, performed in an ethically
acceptable manner.”
 …with caveats
 Current “Catholic moral theology allows organ
donation out of love, provided the functional
integrity of the body is maintained”

 Organ donation requires a prior, explicit, free and

conscious decision on the part of the donor” which
renders “the gift of life” truly free.

 This cannot be done under coercion, threat, and for

most people, finical recompenses.
 Living versus dead donor
 It has been said that the moral issues in the donation of
organs from living donors are different from those
involving organs from dead persons.
 However, the basic principles are the same:
 A person can only donate that part of self by which he
can deprive himself without serious danger or harm to
his own life or
 An entire vital organ can only be donated after death.
 The body can never be treated as a mere biological
entity; nor can its organs or tissues ever be used as
items for sale or exchange
 Organ procurement and
death
 The determination of death should be made by the
physician or competent medical authority in accordance
with responsible and commonly accepted scientific
criteria.
 .Such organs should not be removed until it has been
medically determined that the patient has died. In order
to prevent any conflict of interest, the physician who
determines death should not be a member of the
transplant team.
 The use of tissues or organs from an infant may be
permitted after death has been determined and with the
consent of the parents or guardians
 Brain death
 “For legal and medical purposes, where respiratory
and circulatory functions are maintained by
artificial means of support so as to preclude a
determination that these functions have ceased, the
occurrence of death may be determined where
there is the irreversible cessation of the functioning
of the entire brain, including the brain stem,
determined in accordance with this section. “

 i.e. heart and lungs may be kept “alive” to get the

organs
 What is not death…
 The persistent vegetative state. When brain stem function
remains but the major components of cerebral function are
irreversibly destroyed, the patient is not “brain dead.”
 “Do not resuscitate” orders. This is fundamentally a decision
that cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and other extraordinary
measures are contra-indicated because of the hopelessness
of the patient’s prognosis. This is different from a
determination of death.
 Ordinary versus extraordinary care. The physician’s and the
patient’s respective obligations to use or accept certain forms
of therapy is not relevant to the patient who has been
declared dead. Such a patient is beyond benefit or burden.
Brain-based determinations of death are employed with the
patient on extraordinary forms of artificial life support.
 Use of anencephalic
children’s organs
 The demand for healthy organs brings on ill-advised
attempts to expand the supply by redefining death
or dehumanizing dying patients.

 For example, there are the recurring efforts to

define the anencephalic child as dead, although
such a child is breathing and has a heart beat and
some brain function.
 But…
 This baby is a human being, a citizen, and legally
protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

 More importantly, she or he is a child of God, made

in His image and likeness, and must not be treated
as an object or a mere means to the benefit of
others.
 Encouraging donation
 When the conditions that determine death are properly
met the donation of organs is highly encouraged.
 In such cases, organ donation constitutes an act of
charity by which donors make it possible for recipients
to continue their earthly life while they themselves
receive the reward promised to the generous.
 The most appropriate time to consider organ donation
is before the time of death when emotion can easily
overwhelm reason.
 There is a great need for serious reflection to be given
by individuals as to their willingness to donate their
organs at the time of their physical death.
 Questions
 Are you surprised that the Catholic church
encourages organ donation, considering its
conservative perspective on early life issues? Why is
this? Is it a consistent stance?
 Organ Donation Bibliography

 General

 Adapted from “Contemporary Approaches to Bioethics”, EXP 0027. Taught at Tufts University, Spring 2012.

 Christian Organ Donation

 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion (Washington, DC: United States Catholic
Conference, 1974) 7.

 Danilo C. Tiong, “Human Organ Transplants,” in Beyond a Western Bioethics: Voices from the Developing World, Angeles Tan
Alora and Josephine M. Lumitao, eds. (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2001) 89-93, at 90.

 Florida Catholic Conference, “The Donation of Organs: A Celebration of the Gospel of Life,” 14 no. 4 (1995) at
http://www.flaccb.org/Commentaries/Comm1295.htm

 Jewish Organ Donation

 Warburg, Ronnie. “Renal Transplantation: Living Donors and Markets for Body Parts- Halakha in Concert with Halakhic Policy
or Public Policy.” Tradition 40 no. 2 (2007): 14-48. 14- 17, 19, 22.

 Ofri, Danielle. “Giving Something To Gain Something.” The New York Times 21 Feb. 2012 at
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9806EFD6153FF932A15751C0A9649D8B63&pagewanted=all