Non-Heart-Beating Organ Donation and Catholic Ethics.

Peter A. Clark & Uday Deshmukh, Non-Heart-Beating Organ Donation and Catholic Ethics, 4 NAT'L CATH. BIOETHICS Q. 537 (2004)

The reexamination of the Non-Heart-Beating Donation (NHBD) protocols and the request by organ procurement organizations to implement such protocols in acute-care facilities could lead to an increase in the supply of donor organs nationally. Presently, the various NHBD protocols being promoted have raised serious medical and ethical questions. Without the proper safeguards, there is the potential for doing evil directly and creating a slippery-slope situation in the future. Presently, the organ procurement organizations are not directly promoting evil by advocating for these protocols. But they may be allowing the end--helping to increase the supply of donor organs--to justify any means. This is clearly unacceptable ethically. Unless the ambiguities and inconsistencies in the numerous NHBD protocols are addressed and a standardized protocol is enacted, the present protocols should not be accepted in any Catholic health-care facility.

One way to address these ambiguities and inconsistencies is for United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) to implement nationally a standardized protocol. For this to occur, an inter-disciplinary presidential commission should be convened to address these concerns and to propose ethical criteria that will eliminate the suspicion and doubt that surround the present protocols. After careful examination of this issue, the authors propose the following recommendations for a national protocol to such a commission:

* First, a clear separation of responsibilities between the caregiving team and the transplant team is needed in order to reinforce safeguards regarding withdrawal decisions and appropriate timing in the determination of death. It is imperative that the transplant team not be...