http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08081406.html
[LifeSiteNews] 15 Aug 2008--In an article that is sure to rock the world of organ donation, the highly respected New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has backed up the objections of various pro-life groups, as well as some scientists and physicians, to certain types of organ donation which involve the removal of vital organs from patients believed to be dead. The problem, say the authors of the NEJM article, is that in many cases these patients may not be dead at all.
Key experts in the medical field have, since its inception, considered the 1968 invention of 'brain death' and the more recent criteria of 'cardiac death' as unsupportable criteria for true death. If it is true, however, that brain death and cardiac death are invalid as criteria for true death, it would make morally illicit vital organ donation, since such donation would in some cases result directly in the killing of the donor for the purpose of harvesting his organs.
The two authors of the article in the NEJM, both proponents of organ donation, argue that "as an ethical requirement for organ donation, the dead donor rule has required unnecessary and unsupportable revisions of the definition of death."
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