With regard to a particular news story in the public eye of late, I would like to advance the following proposition.
For people with massive brain damage, with no physiological possibility of regaining consciousness under current medical science, could/should there be a system in place that folks could opt into, like they opt into organ donation in the event of death, wherein their blood could be harvested regularly and, in some cases, certain duplicated organs such as one kidney, some bits of liver, skin, cornea…limbs?
We are talking about folks with no hope of consciousness, but who have enough brain stem left to operate the body in an idle state. Should medical science one day be able to return higher brain functions to these people, it would likely be able to regenerate and replant the harvested parts anyway.
I don’t know about others, but this sounds like a horrifying scenario.
It’s better to let them die than to use them for harvesting organs.
Let me put it this way. Would you like your mother to lay there for years while they continually harvested organs from her? Wouldn’t it be better to just let her die?
Of course, you said people could “opt-in” to this, but it still sounds horrible.
One thing that occurs to me. Let’s say I opt into this via a living will. Would it make social economic sense to let me lie around for years in a persistant vegatative state while I donate blood, and parts of me are harvested for transplant? The current blood donation system surely would be cheaper, and are parts of my body that could be used for transplant that medically valuable? I’d think it would be better to just let me die.
It seems like giving your organs away is a pretty nice thing. I’m led to believe that the waiting lists for most organ transfers (kidneys, livers, etc.) are extremely long and most would be recipients end up dying while waiting.
One person (even someone in a PVS) can only donate one pint every six weeks according to the Red Cross (I think… maybe it’s more like two pints?). So you wouldn’t be getting much blood out of them anyway. Blood isn’t really scarce, not like organs.
I don’t see why we shouldn’t harvest the PVS victim’s body after death, if they’re already registered as an organ donor. Don’t we do that now with coma victims who’ve opted in? Since there’s no benefit to removing organs before death as opposed to right afterwards, I don’t think there’d be any point to slowly stripping the PVS victim of their lungs and kidneys.
There are many many more sensible ways to attain organs and blood. For instance, Bill Frist, Republican Senator extrodinaire, who can diagnose patients from miles away almost as easily as Dr. Krautmenhammerhumaer M.D. whatever, has written that we could harvest organs from anencephaic babies who don’t have enough brain function for it to matter to them one way or another.
I’m sure we do. And I don’t favor Inigo’s plan, but lemme explain the problem.
No, is too long. Lemme sum up. I think someone’s organs often undergo failure and degeneration of various kinda while they’re in a coma. If I’m right, I think organs from someone who’s been in a coma for a fairly long time would be unusable.
I think there are organs that can be removed without killing the patient - corneas, part of small intestine, maybe one lung and one kidney.
Also, if I had a living will that requests termination of life support and organ donation, will I be able to specify that my body be kept alive until a viable recipient of my heart can be found? I wouldn’t mind specifying that in my will.
You did something that I didn’t think was possible: you made this sound more ghoulish. :smack:
Even minor surgeries of that sort could kill a person in a coma, since part of the “pulling the plug” thing is refusing life-prolonging medical treatment.
To address the economic issues: The living dead I’m referring to are already in a situation where their life is being prolonged at considerable expense. Why not use 'em as a “sta-fresh organ machine.”
And I wonder if there isn’t a supplement that could be added IV to stimulate blood production, thereby increasing donation ability?
Is there an MD in the house that can clear up whether the usable organs undergo considerable atrophe during PVS?
I’ll wait for one to do that, but I’m pretty sure a person in a coma is not a “sta-fresh organ machine.” I wasn’t revulsed by this idea at first, but I am now.
I don’t find the idea particularly icky, but I do find it unworkable. Frankly, a case like Schiavo’s is a good excuse to promote living wills (“don’t let this happen to you!”). Throw in lots of literature about how good it is to be an organ donor, and hopefully the rate of accident victims who become donors will rise.
I think I’m the only other ghoulishly utilitarian person here, so let me just chime in and say when it becomes painfully clear that I can no longer recognize my wife’s face, or laugh at a good joke, or tap my feet (or stumps) to music, then the guy I want to be remembered as is dead, and when that happens… parts is parts.
Keep me alive until you can make optimal use of my spares, and then: take my eyes, my heart, my lungs, my liver, my kidneys, my pancreas, my intestines, my brain, my bone marrow, my blood (all of it!), my fat (if you want to make soap), and if it will help a burn victim somewhere, take my skin. Burn whatever’s left and scatter the ashes in the Atlantic and on Noxontown Pond. Unless you can think of something more useful to do with 'em.
I am totally not kidding on this.
Oh, and if you try to keep me on a ventilator or some crazy shit like that, in the vain hope that I’ll come back, long after it’s clear that I’m gone, I swear to Og once I’m dead I’ll haunt your ass like you ain’t EVER been haunted.
My MD driver’s license already specifies that I’m an organ donor; my preferences in that regard will go into any living will or durable power of attorney that I draft. And that’s high on my to-do list these days.
I understand why this is inefficient, but personally, I’d have nothing against my body being a blood-machine if it were practical. As it is, I hope everything that can be used gets harvested. Then eat the rest. Or give it to your dog or something. It’s no good to me anymore, and I don’t need people saving it as some sort of idol on their mantlepiece, or taking up precious land in a cemetary.