Three major Catholic organizations and one of the largest physician organizations in the United States are warning the American public about a national proposal to redefine what constitutes being legally dead and its implications for card-carrying organ donors and the transplant industry.
The Uniform Law Commission (ULC), an influential national organization that recommends legislation to all 50 states, has introduced changes to the Uniform Death Determination Act (UDDA), that would amend the definition of brain death to partial brain death or what Dr. Joseph Meaney, President of the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) described to The Epoch Times as “not really dead.”
“This is very, very serious,” said Dr. Meaney, ” because once you’ve been determined to be so-called dead, then many things can happen to you, one of which is they can take organs for transplantation off a person who isn’t really dead,” said Meaney, “It’s not acceptable from an ethical perspective. But it’s also kind of scary for people who are considering being organ donors.”
His group, along with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a joint statement this week against the proposal in anticipation of the ULC’s plans to work on the proposed USSA revisions this weekend at its annual conference in Honolulu.
The American College of Physicians (ACP) and the Catholic Medical Association have also issued warnings about the proposed redefinition of death.
The ULC did not respond to inquiries right away about the proposed changes to the Uniform Death Determination Act, often referred to as the “Death Act.”
The idea to revise the Death Act came about last year when Neurology published a paper written by a group of medical professors who argued that the existence of some brain function should not stand in the way of declaring someone legally dead when there is no hope the patient will ever be able to regain consciousness.
In their published argument, entitled “Revise the Uniform Determination of Death Act to Align the Law With Practice Through Neurorespiratory Criteria.”
