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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A biotech breakthrough to avoid dialysis

WonderfulEngineering.com | Ali Vaqar | Nov. 19 2017

…This bio-hybrid uses living kidney cells along with a series of specialized microchips powered by the human heart to filter waste from the blood-stream. The artificial kidney can bypass the complication of matching donors and tissue rejection. …The artificial kidney has 15 microchips built one atop the other and they act as filters. They will hold living renal cells which will eventually grow around the microchips and mimic a real kidney. Engineers are currently working and testing every single detail of the device to make sure the device can safely let the blood run through without the formation of clots or damaging the kidney in any way…

2019 UPDATE: Implantable artificial kidney achieves preclinical milestone

"…Following promising studies in large animals, The Kidney Project's hemofiltration system is currently awaiting FDA approval for an initial clinical trial to evaluate its safety. The bioreactor technology has been tested in laboratory experiments but so far had not been implanted into animals…" Read more.

Angel fish
Public Domain, Link

...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.