February 14, 2018 is National Organ Donation Day, which “is a day to increase awareness about organ donation and the lives that can be saved.” Donating an organ is certainly a wonderful opportunity for selfless giving, provided the donor is not euthanized by having his or her organs harvested. If Christians desire to be faithful to Scripture and to be prolife then there are some important issues they should understand about this specialized and lucrative practice that are scientifically proven and biblical.
Heart-Beating Donors
According to the most recent statistics from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs) harvested 28,588 organs from legally dead donors in 2017. Of this number most had their organs removed while the heart was still beating, including the beating heart! This practice receives legal sanction in the United States under the Uniform Definition of Death Act (UDDA) which was codified as law in 1981. According to the UDDA after “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem” has “supposedly” occurred, the organ donor is considered legally “dead”—at this time his or her vital organs and tissues may be harvested.
Of course the issue for someone who is prolife is not whether recovery will occur, it is the fact a human body still has a beating heart in it, “brain-dead” or not. Presently, there is at least one legally “brain-dead” person with a California death certificate from 2013, who is still living with a beating heart in New Jersey. Her name is Jahi McMath and the most recent motion filed in court to rescind her legal status of death occurred in December of 2017. Jahi is dependent on a ventilator to breathe, so the only way to determine if her heart will stop beating is to remove the breathing machine completely and to wait until it stops—a procedure that does not normally occur with heart-beating organ donors defined as legally brain dead. This preemptive strike on brain-dead donors is rooted in an educated guess of non-recovery, and the obvious evidence of a beating heart is left out of the equation.
The Fallacy of Brain Death
The reverse is also true. Some studies have found that even after five minutes of heart and lung stoppage measurable activity in the brain can still be detected, not to mention the UDDA does not meet the burden of its own brain-death definition. Evidence exists showing the brain has not ceased to function, never mind meeting the criteria for “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem.” For example, when a surgeon slices into a “brain-dead” donor heart rate and blood pressure increase which indicates a coordinated neuro-endocrine-cardiac response—the sensing of pain, followed by a neurological stress response to stimulate hormonal release, causing the heart to beat faster and the arteries to constrict. If this is not enough to show how tenuous and murky this definition and practice is, on July 9, 2013 ABC News reported that a “brain-dead” organ donor woke up on the operating room table!
Life Begins at Conception
If life begins at conception, or when the blastocyst (sperm and egg fusion) attaches to the uterine wall of the mother, then life starts five to six weeks before the neurological system and brain develops. Brain death cannot be a valid definition of death because technically the brain was not formed when life started, nor the heart and lungs for that matter. Certainly the potential for the brain, heart, and lungs to develop is present at conception; but so is the possibility for ongoing life in a fully developed “brain-dead” human being with a beating heart and lungs. Prolife people see life as beginning at conception, which means life cannot end until it does so at the cellular level, which occurs sometime after heart, lung, and brain functions cease, or when aerobic or oxygen functions in the body change to anaerobic or non-oxygen processes. Of course if a Christian sees harvesting organs from brain-dead donors as a legitimate practice, then he or she should also be consistent and permit abortion at least up to five weeks—the issue here is not about life being present, it is about when a human being loses personhood and when an embryo becomes a person, which depends on the presence of the brain and its ability to function in this view.
Body-Spirit Beings
Human beings are body-spirit beings. Christians believe in a supernatural God-breathed spirit giving life to the body. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” or “being” (Gen. 2:7). Thus, we are not materialists believing we are composed of merely matter and energy, but dualists affirming we exist as a tightly knit union of material-spirit substances. The brain is not the locus of life, the human spirit or soul (the more common term) is. Neither do we affirm Plato (the body is a house the soul lives in and it can function without it) or Aristotle (the body [an accident in the philosophical sense] is the form of the soul and when reason is gone so is the person). We are those believing we exist as God-breathed essence creatures bearing the image of God in our whole person—a soma psychikon (a body-spirit being), looking forward to the day we will become a soma pneumatikon (a resurrected body-spirit being; see 1 Cor. 15:15:19–23; 35–57; 2 Cor. 5:1–8), with the sad result of experiencing a temporary separation from the body as a spirit being because “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23a; 2 Cor. 5:4; Luke 23:46 cf. vv. 40–43; Rev. 6:9; 20:4 cf. 14:13). If the brain is declared “dead” but the heart is still beating then the obvious conclusion is a human being is still alive—the God-breathed essence continues to animate the body.
These are some important issues for Christians to consider for National Organ Donation Day if they want to be biblical and prolife. To read more about this vexing issue, pick up your copy of Modern Medicine's Definition of Death: Ethical Implications for Christians by clicking on the book.
Heart-Beating Donors
According to the most recent statistics from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs) harvested 28,588 organs from legally dead donors in 2017. Of this number most had their organs removed while the heart was still beating, including the beating heart! This practice receives legal sanction in the United States under the Uniform Definition of Death Act (UDDA) which was codified as law in 1981. According to the UDDA after “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem” has “supposedly” occurred, the organ donor is considered legally “dead”—at this time his or her vital organs and tissues may be harvested.
Of course the issue for someone who is prolife is not whether recovery will occur, it is the fact a human body still has a beating heart in it, “brain-dead” or not. Presently, there is at least one legally “brain-dead” person with a California death certificate from 2013, who is still living with a beating heart in New Jersey. Her name is Jahi McMath and the most recent motion filed in court to rescind her legal status of death occurred in December of 2017. Jahi is dependent on a ventilator to breathe, so the only way to determine if her heart will stop beating is to remove the breathing machine completely and to wait until it stops—a procedure that does not normally occur with heart-beating organ donors defined as legally brain dead. This preemptive strike on brain-dead donors is rooted in an educated guess of non-recovery, and the obvious evidence of a beating heart is left out of the equation.
The Fallacy of Brain Death
The reverse is also true. Some studies have found that even after five minutes of heart and lung stoppage measurable activity in the brain can still be detected, not to mention the UDDA does not meet the burden of its own brain-death definition. Evidence exists showing the brain has not ceased to function, never mind meeting the criteria for “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem.” For example, when a surgeon slices into a “brain-dead” donor heart rate and blood pressure increase which indicates a coordinated neuro-endocrine-cardiac response—the sensing of pain, followed by a neurological stress response to stimulate hormonal release, causing the heart to beat faster and the arteries to constrict. If this is not enough to show how tenuous and murky this definition and practice is, on July 9, 2013 ABC News reported that a “brain-dead” organ donor woke up on the operating room table!
Life Begins at Conception
If life begins at conception, or when the blastocyst (sperm and egg fusion) attaches to the uterine wall of the mother, then life starts five to six weeks before the neurological system and brain develops. Brain death cannot be a valid definition of death because technically the brain was not formed when life started, nor the heart and lungs for that matter. Certainly the potential for the brain, heart, and lungs to develop is present at conception; but so is the possibility for ongoing life in a fully developed “brain-dead” human being with a beating heart and lungs. Prolife people see life as beginning at conception, which means life cannot end until it does so at the cellular level, which occurs sometime after heart, lung, and brain functions cease, or when aerobic or oxygen functions in the body change to anaerobic or non-oxygen processes. Of course if a Christian sees harvesting organs from brain-dead donors as a legitimate practice, then he or she should also be consistent and permit abortion at least up to five weeks—the issue here is not about life being present, it is about when a human being loses personhood and when an embryo becomes a person, which depends on the presence of the brain and its ability to function in this view.
Body-Spirit Beings
Human beings are body-spirit beings. Christians believe in a supernatural God-breathed spirit giving life to the body. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” or “being” (Gen. 2:7). Thus, we are not materialists believing we are composed of merely matter and energy, but dualists affirming we exist as a tightly knit union of material-spirit substances. The brain is not the locus of life, the human spirit or soul (the more common term) is. Neither do we affirm Plato (the body is a house the soul lives in and it can function without it) or Aristotle (the body [an accident in the philosophical sense] is the form of the soul and when reason is gone so is the person). We are those believing we exist as God-breathed essence creatures bearing the image of God in our whole person—a soma psychikon (a body-spirit being), looking forward to the day we will become a soma pneumatikon (a resurrected body-spirit being; see 1 Cor. 15:15:19–23; 35–57; 2 Cor. 5:1–8), with the sad result of experiencing a temporary separation from the body as a spirit being because “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23a; 2 Cor. 5:4; Luke 23:46 cf. vv. 40–43; Rev. 6:9; 20:4 cf. 14:13). If the brain is declared “dead” but the heart is still beating then the obvious conclusion is a human being is still alive—the God-breathed essence continues to animate the body.
These are some important issues for Christians to consider for National Organ Donation Day if they want to be biblical and prolife. To read more about this vexing issue, pick up your copy of Modern Medicine's Definition of Death: Ethical Implications for Christians by clicking on the book.