Dead enough by Walter Glannon
To honour donors, we should harvest organs that have the best chance of helping others – before, not after, death
Now imagine that before the stroke our hypothetical patient had expressed a wish to donate his organs after his death. If neurologists could determine that the patient had no chance of recovery, then would that patient really be harmed if transplant surgeons removed life-support, such as ventilators and feeding tubes, and took his organs, instead of waiting for death by natural means? Certainly, the organ recipient would gain: waiting too long before declaring a patient dead could allow the disease process to impair organ function by decreasing blood flow to them, making those organs unsuitable for transplant.
But I contend that the donor would gain too: by harvesting his organs when he can contribute most, we would have honoured his wish to save other lives. And chances are high that we would be taking nothing from him of value. This permanently comatose patient will never see, hear, feel or even perceive the world again whether we leave his organs to whither inside him or not.
There are reasons why you shouldn't kill someone in a coma that doesn't want to be killed when they're in a coma even if you disagree with them about what makes life have moral value. If they agreed to have the plug pulled when it becomes clear that they won't wake up, then it seems pretty reasonable to take out the organs before pulling the plug. And given what's at stake, given permission, you should be able to take out their organs early and hasten their deaths by a short time in exchange for making it more likely to save someone else.
And why are you already conjecturing about what we would have wanted? We're not dead yet. Just ask us what we want.
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