Now is the time to end organ harvesting from “dead” donors

A recent article in The New York Times (NYT) titled “A Push for More Organ Transplants Is Putting Donors at Risk” uncovered that 55 medical workers in 19 states “had witnessed at least one disturbing case of donation” using an organ harvesting technique called “donation after circulatory death” (DCD).

The article highlighted multiple cases of organ retrieval either beginning or nearly beginning on living patients, one of whom recalled feeling afraid while in the hospital.

The NYT quoted Dr. Wade Smith, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco, as stating: “I think these types of problems are happening much more than we know.”

In addition, the Health Resources and Services Administration, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), reported in its recent article “HHS Finds Systemic Disregard for Sanctity of Life in Organ Transplant System” that in 351 cases where organ donation was authorized but ultimately not completed:

• 103 cases (29.3%) “showed concerning features, including 73 patients with neurological signs incompatible with organ donation.”
• At least 28 patients (7.9%) may not have been dead at the time organ harvesting was initiated.

This disregard for patient safety was characterized as “clear negligence.”

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. posted on X “There have been massive ethical breaches in many organ transplant cases….” He wrote that some “dead” donors had blood pressure and heart rate elevation at the time of organ harvesting, indicating they could feel pain.

Many people do not realize that organ procurement organizations (OPOs) profit in direct relationship to the number of organs they harvest. Since 2020 HHS has rated OPOs based on that number. Those performing “poorly” relative to others (meaning a lower rate of securing organ donations from potential donors) risk losing their contracts. So, OPOs have a compelling financial interest to convince families to donate their loved ones’ organs, which constitutes a conflict of interest and may encourage loose adherence to protocols.

Based on these investigations, it is clear that a substantial number of “dead” donors are alive at the time of organ harvesting. Some patients could even potentially be conscious and feel the pain of being cut open if anesthesia were not used during organ harvesting.

In his 2000 Address to the 18^th International Congress of the Transplantation Society, Pope Saint John Paul II unambiguously stated the necessity of moral certainty that patients be truly dead before their vital organs are harvested:

Moral certainty is considered the necessary and sufficient basis for an ethically correct course of action. Only where such certainty exists, and where informed consent has already been given by the [organ] donor or the donor’s legitimate representatives, is it morally right to initiate the technical procedures required for the removal of organs for transplant. [emphasis added]

We Catholics cannot support the practice of harvesting vital organs from “dead” donors when we know that many of them are still alive. This reality is unequivocally incompatible with Catholic teaching on the sanctity of human life.

So let us unite in calling for an immediate halt to harvesting organs from “dead” donors. Irrespective of whether we believe that such patients theoretically could be dead, the truth is that many of them–and potentially all of them–are alive. Let us continue to build on the spirit of the 2024 Statement Catholics United on Brain Death and Organ Donation: A Call to Action, which was endorsed by 151 Catholic health care professionals, theologians, philosophers, ethicists, lawyers, apologists, and pro-life advocates.

Here is a preemptive response to various objections that could be posed to this call for unity.

Objection: The NYT article only addresses DCD, not “brain death,” so to call for a moratorium on organ harvesting from “dead” donors is going too far.

Response: Cases have also been reported of patients being conscious and fully recovering after being declared “brain dead,” with just some of those cases detailed on the Survivors page of Respect for Human Life, maintained by Dr. Heidi Klessig. When a driver volunteers to be an organ donor on their driver’s license, they cannot choose whether to be declared “brain dead” or dead using DCD – to accept one is to accept both. Moreover, the HHS investigation did include “brain-dead” patients.

Objection: If the “right” criteria are used, then the donor will certainly be dead at the time of organ harvesting.

Response: A severely injured patient cannot foresee which hospital he or she is taken to or know what criteria that particular hospital might use. There is substantial heterogeneity among hospitals throughout the United States and the world in the protocol used and the strictness of adherence to that protocol.

Objection: these cases of donors being alive are rare and being sensationalized by pro-life extremists to cause unfounded fear.

Response: The NYT and federal government are hardly pro-life bastions. The fact that they have raised a warning flag indicates something egregiously unethical and genuinely terrifying is taking place. Also, as evidenced by the HHS investigation, these cases are certainly not rare. Absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence. The cases that come to light are almost certainly just the tip of an iceberg. Even if these cases were rare, it would be a small consolation to the patient who feels being dissected to know that he or she is “an exception to the rule.”

The time is now for Catholics to unite in solidarity against harvesting organs from “dead” donors. Even the federal government has acknowledged, in the title of its recent report, that there currently exists systemic disregard for the sanctity of life in the organ transplant system. Catholics are called to be at the forefront of defending human life–let’s stand together to protect this vulnerable population.