Has Organ Transplanting Gone Too Far?

When my children were babies, many a night I'd wake up, quietly get out of bed, walk softly down the hall to the nursery and listen. In the shadow of the dimmed light, I'd watch, wait, make sure I not only heard my baby take a breath, but also make sure I could see that little chest rise and fall, and rise and fall in restful slumber. I knew then that little heart was beating.

The thought of losing one of my precious children to something unexpected like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) provided more than enough motivation for my midnight checks. Long after my children were out of the danger period and into school, there were nights sleep eluded and I'd quietly enter the hall, standing first outside of my son's then my daughter's room until I heard the sound of breathing-hear that heart beat. As I stood outside each door, I prayed for these precious lives put into our care.

What if some catastrophe caused the heart beat to stop? Would the hospital resuscitate or "pull the plug," murdering my children while they still lived for a heart transplant because someone needed the heart? It could happen. Sure there are supposed to be all sorts of safeguards in place, but for how long? And what about the vulnerability of parents or family approached with the seemingly altruistic, 'Let this life have meaning. Let him/her live on in their organs." What family isn't told is that transplants need living donors.

I think of that now when I read about hearts being stripped from still warm human beings in order to facilitate the growing demand for replacements. Heart beats silenced for organ heart transplants. Ethics crash under a new practice of not waiting until brain waves cease or hardly waiting until the heart beat has stopped before ripping the heart from the victim to "save" the life of-who--someone more deserving of life with an organ heart transplant? And family not really understanding the results of decisions to end life.

In March, LifeSiteNews.com reported of this gruesome heart transplant practice, "Instead of waiting until brain function ceases and the patient is declared "brain-dead" by medical officials (itself a questionable practice since there is no universally-accepted definition of brain-death) surgeons have begun following an approach known as 'donation after cardiac death.' Organs are harvested once the heart has stopped beating and several minutes have passed without the heart spontaneously re-starting."

Yet, haven't we all heard of cases of individuals thought dead, when a heart beat as ceased, either being resuscitated or coming back spontaneously? In today's culture and with the demand for body parts for organ and heart transplants-and make no mistake this is big business-there is less and less motivation to resuscitate a patient. This grows even worse when the same doctor declares one patient dead, when one person's heart beat is silent just a beat too long, in order to use parts to keep another patient alive through an organ and/or heart transplant.

Jerry A. Menikoff, an associate professor of law, ethics and medicine at the University of Kansas said of this procedure to scarcely wait until the heart beat has ceased before declaring a patient dead for organ and heart transplant surgery, "The person is not dead yet. ...we're starting to remove the organs a few minutes before they meet the legal definition of death."

The Washington Post reported, "Surgeons at the Children's Hospital in Denver, Colorado wait only 75 seconds after infants' hearts stop beating before removing the heart for transplant."

Children, babies, are particularly vulnerable to overeager surgeons willing to wait mere seconds after the cessation of a heart beat to rip it out for use as a heart transplant. How long before our culture follows China into live donor organ removal starting with our babies, our elderly, our disabled?

It is time now to let our voices be heard, before we allow another and far more gruesome holocaust to take place. The life you save may be your child's or your own. Let hearts beat with life...not death.