I just read an article on the practice and am horrified. Physicians are showing concern over a technique that is being used to skirt the guidelines that were put in place to protect the lives of organ donors. I have no idea how prevalent this practice is. I'll try to synopsize accurately. Link to article. The Uniform Declaration of Death Act (UDDA) was passed into law in 1981. Under the UDDA, a person may be declared legally dead after the irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or the irreversible cessation of all functions of the brain, including the brainstem. In the never-ending quest for viable organs, doctors have found a way around brain death and circulatory death criteria. Transplant centers around the country are removing organ donors from life support, clamping off the blood flow to their brains, and then restarting their hearts after being hooked up to a cardiac bypass machine to keep the blood-flow going...except the doctors have clamped off the machine's blood flow to the brain. Thus, the organs are resuscitated and viable for transplant, but the person can then be declared "brain dead." This "procedure" allows for organ-harvesting in patients who are not yet brain-dead but who are not "expected to survive." Life support is removed, and after the heart stops beating, doctors wait an average of 2–3 minutes to see if the heart will start up again on its own. If it doesn't, then the above "procedure" begins to declare the patient technically dead...then the harvest begins. Ethical doctors are gravely concerned, knowing that patients have come out of cardiac arrest up to 10 minutes after cardiac arrest (not just 2-3 minutes), some with no apparent ill-effect. One nightmare scenario has already occurred. According to the article, in 2020 the heart of a young woman who had been declared dead by "circulatory criteria" was noted to have restarted during the removal of her kidneys, even as she began to gasp for breath. The coroner declared her "second" death a homicide. There is also concern that any patient who is subject to this is not brain dead, so may be aware of what is happening to them as this procedure is taking place. Yet this practice continues to be permitted in the states (Australia and some other nations have outlawed this practice.)
I was once very pro organ donation until I actually worked around them "vultures. We called them vultures because they would linger over the patients hoping they would soon die so they could get back to their families. I don't want people hang around me wishing me dead, and I don't want that for my loved ones either. Since that time, I haven't put my name on any donation lists nor consented on my drivers license. There is no doubt that organ donation can do some very good things, and I kinda believe that everyone who has a motorcycle license should be an organ donor (as that is where 60-80% of donors come from), but it is not for me or my family unless it is a directed donation of a liver lobe or a kidney.
It sucks, doesn't it? We don't want to outright dissuade people, yet the system is literally killing patients so as to harvest their valuable remains in the best possible saleable condition. All humanity is being raped of our institutions. This "procedure" was created at the University of Nebraska. Perhaps this would be a good time to talk about murder for profit assisted suicide...but it won't happen. Ethical conversations always get pushed aside, and the "Do No Harm" people become impatient with the human being that is an impediment to the procedure they want to do. I've always been of the mind that it would be selfish of me to not give life to others after my death. But I just went online and removed my name from the state donor list. I'm going to get a replacement license so the updated correct status appears, and I'm doing it in person (not on line) so I can verify that things are properly documented (since in Virginia the driver's license Organ Donor status pulls from the state database.) This is infuriating/frightening/chilling that such a thing can stand unchecked. We're no better than China.
Here is a website that has information on this subject: Respect For Human Life. I was directed to it by the author of the American Thinker article, who co-authored a book on the subject. Organ harvesters have sometimes made it impossible for coroners to determine a cause of death (meaning that crimes may go undetected/unpunished.) Here's an article on the L.A. Times website stating that in some states the law gives the private harvesting companies the authority to force government coroners to delay autopsies until the private companies have harvested the body parts, rendering autopsies impossible to do. The worse part is that the industry makes tons of money harvesting skin, bone, fat, ligaments and other tissues for biotech companies and the cosmetics industry...these are not life-saving "My mommy needs a lung" situations.
I did not mention that the vultures sometimes talked to the patients telling them to "hurry up and die". I never saw any deliberate manipulating of the patient to make the process go faster, but that was years ago and things may have changed. It is all a part of the Culture of Death that seems to have taken over the world. Assisted suicide, "death panels" for denial of medical services, and you almost reelected an incumbent governor who advocated for letting a newborn die if the mother and the doctors don't want it to live, not to mention abortion up to the moment that a child leaves the birth canal.
I do know that the dignity that we'd like to think comes along with organ donation is generally missing.
Always a few ghouls hanging out in medicine. I had a mortician man and wife team that lived behind me. What a weirdo he was. They finally moved into a new house in Lafayette but still own the lot behind me. Only in America could politicians figure out how to make a buck on our deaths. Most people don't understand that these large city cemeteries are stacking bodies on the same soil. I choose cremation and figure I might still need something even in the afterlife. My parts are pretty worn out thank heaven. I won't have to worry about some stranger selling my parts. If they could see what passed before my eyes then they wouldn't want them.
US medicine was based on stolen bodies. Grave robbing in support of medical science has a long tradition here, although I'm sure the United States isn't alone in that.
You gotta wonder if we (I) might respect that a little more because we can imagine/pretend there was some higher-level intellectual curiosity or To Serve Man intent, rather than just harvesting our dead bodies for dollars.