Fetuses, Organs and Brain-Death

One of the things that strikes me in the debate over whether a State has a sufficiently compelling interest in sustaining the physiological functions of a dead-brain pregnant woman in order to protect the life of the fetus, is that this very same rationale is not appealed to when we consider the many lives that are at stake when the deceased, or someone else — typically the next-of-kin — decides not to donate its organs after death. So, if the commitment of Texas — or any other State — with the protection of “human life” is sincere, if we can finally agree on that interest as being as compelling as to permit legislation restraining the woman’s right to refuse or terminate end-of-life care when she is pregnant, and their families’ right to bury or cremate their relative once it is pronounced legally dead, wouldn’t that rationale also legitimize the confiscation of dead-brain people in general in order to harvest their organs for the sake of saving the lives of others? I think coherence mandates so.

Actually, our reasons for such conscription in the case of organs’ harvesting are much more compelling than in the case of Marlise Muñoz if we take into account the fatal prognosis of the fetus, the experimental character of the continuation of pregnancy in a brain-dead woman, and the better expectations that we might nowadays have when we transplant organs.

This post is part of The Bioethics Program‘s Online Symposium on the Munoz and McMath cases. To see all symposium contributions, click here.

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