Organ Transplants & Harvesting
(Christian Ethics, by Norman Geisler)
Organ transplantation has become a reality. Heart, lung, and kidney transplants are now common. Hundreds of people have had their lives prolonged because of this corrective technology. Transplantation is in accordance with many biblical principles. First, the principle of charity: “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”. I find it hard to imagine giving an eye, lung, or kidney to someone who has none, yet some 
living human beings have done this. How little sacrifice is required to do so when we are dead and no longer in need of these organs! Organ transplantation should be used as a means to prolong life, not as a means to avoid the eventuality of death. In this regard it can be questionable when used on the very elderly.
Serious moral questions are involved in the transplantation procedure. First, it should involve informed consent. No one should be forced to donate one’s organs, and no organ should be taken without permission of the donor, especially from those who are unable to make this decision (such as the handicapped). No one else has the right to give away another person’s organs against the donor’s will. In this sense my body belongs to me, and death does not erase this right.
Second, there is a moral question about the life-and-death status of the donor. The fresher the organ, the greater chances of success in the transplant, and organs from living donors are the best. However, if taking the organ causes death, then it is wrong. Yet after the person dies, the body may justifiably be kept ‘alive’ by machine to prevent organ decay. It simply means that we should not hasten death in order to harvest a fresh organ. With the exception of taking ‘spare’ organs, such as one kidney or one eye, the donor must be brain-dead before the organ is taken. Death is difficult to define, but in general terms it means vital signs are lacking, such as breathing, pulse, nerve reactions, or brain wave.
(“Body Snatchers: Organ Harvesting For Profit” by Dale Archer, M.D.)
Kidneys and other organs are selling to the highest bidder on the black market. Recently in China, a missing 6-year-old boy was found alone in a field, crying. Upon closer inspection, both eyes had been removed, presumably for the corneas.
In 2012, a young African girl was kidnapped and brought to the UK for the sole purpose of harvesting her organs. She was one of the lucky ones—rescued before she went under the knife. Authorities feel this is just the tip of the iceberg.
This isn’t just an international occurrence. Kendrick Johnson, a Georgia teen, died at school January 2013. The local sheriff quickly determined the death was a freak accident, that he suffocated after getting stuck in a rolled up mat in the school gym. Johnson’s parents however, could not—would not—accept that. Six months after his death, they obtained a court order to have the body exhumed for an independent autopsy.
The pathologist was stunned when he found the corpse stuffed with newspaper. The brain, heart, lungs and liver were missing. He also discovered Johnson’s death was due to blunt force trauma to the right side of his neck. The FBI is now involved in this disturbing case with potentially shattering reverberations.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes has spent over ten years studying the dark side of organ harvesting and trafficking which is driven by greedy middle men and desperate, wealthy recipients. Black market organs are being transplanted in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles at $150,000 a pop. She reports there are “broker-friendly” US hospitals, complete with surgeons who either don’t know or don’t care where the organs come from.
Organ donation is only possible if the organ in question has blood and oxygen flowing through it until the time of harvesting. A living donor can give a whole kidney, a portion of their liver, lung, intestine or pancreas. Otherwise, the donor must be declared brain dead while circulation and oxygenation remain intact.
Today, 120,771 people are waiting for an organ, and 18 will die every day while waiting. Just one donor has the ability to save up to 8 lives. Where there’s a demand, there’s a way. And for the wealthy money is no object when it comes to a vitally needed body part.
Organ donation is strictly regulated in the US, yet a black market is alive and well. Typically, a broker will team up with a funeral home director, forging consent forms and a death certificate to harvest human tissue before the body is cremated or buried. Sometimes organs are harvested from a living victim for compensation. In the worst case it involves kidnapping for the purpose of organ harvesting. Always at the end of the chain is a wealthy recipient, willing to pay big bucks with no questions asked.
In some countries, impoverished villagers may sell an organ for several hundred dollars. In others, organ harvesting is tied to human trafficking. Children sold into slavery or a life of sexual abuse are also used for their organs.
There’s a black market for hearts, lungs, and livers, but the kidney is the most sought after. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 7,000 kidneys are illegally harvested annually by traffickers worldwide and the prices vary widely by country.
The average buyer spends $150,000 (though prices in excess of $200,000 are common) while the average donor gets $5,000. The big profits go the the middle men and “organ brokers”. In the US 98,463 individuals are waiting for a kidney as of October 25, 2013. Of those, about half will die before they receive one.
Genetic Technology
(Margaret R. McLean is the director of Biotechnology and Health Care Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics).
I n 1990, an international effort was launched to decode the language of our genes—the Human Genome Project (HGP). The United States is investing $3 billion over 15 years in this endeavor to map the complete set of genes for humans-the human genome. The project will make it easier for researchers who want to identify the genetic components both of disease and of physical and intellectual traits.
Discovering the location of a disease-causing gene on a chromosome permits diagnosis before the onset of symptoms. It also allows testing of entire populations to identify carriers as well as those who are affected. The long-term hope is for a precise molecular correction of the defect so that genetic disease becomes as curable as infectious disease. Such therapy might also prevent genetic pathologies from moving from one generation to the next.
Prenatal screening and diagnosis can be accomplished through methods such as amniocentesis. Sometimes genetic testing is coupled with in vitro fertilization in a technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). PGD is currently offered in a limited number of research facilities. In this method, after the egg is fertilized outside the womb, the embryo is allowed to reach the eight-cell stage of development before a cell is removed. This cell is then tested for genetic components that would predispose the child to a particular disease such as Huntington’s. Then, only those embryos that do not contain the disease gene are transferred to the uterus, thereby eliminating the chance of having a child with Huntington’s disease. [But, this means that the ‘disease carrying embryo(s)’ would be ‘killed’.]
Through cell cloning, however, scientists could make multiple copies of the embryo they wish to modify, increasing the genetic surgical success rate. Indeed, cellular cloning seems to hold the key to the successful genetic engineering of humans. But to what end?
Amniocentesis
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists now recommends that doctors offer all pregnant women prenatal testing, which can detect chromosomal conditions like Down syndrome before their babies are born. As a result, they all face a decision, or a series of decisions, on what to do. (Christianity Today)
So what is amniocentesis? It is a test carried out on pregnant mothers, used to detect chromosome abnormalities in the fetus such as Down’s syndrome. In amniocentesis, a sample of the amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus is removed and analysed. This test is performed from week 15 of the pregnancy onwards.
This test is always offered to women over 38; if your pregnancy is thought to be a risk; if you have incompatible blood groups; or if the doctor suspects the baby could have digestive or neurological malformations or need medical attention.
(TheMedSchoolProject.com Megan Davis)
One of the main controversies behind Amniocentesis is the overwhelming fear that people have of a needle going near their unborn baby and the chance of miscarriage. Although the procedure has been practiced for many years, people do not feel comfortable with how the procedure is conducted and the risks that follow. According to Mayo Clinic, the procedure is done 200,000 times a year in North America and Europe. (genetictestingandamniocentesis.wordpress.com)
[There are new tests coming on the market each year that are safer. One, which has been out for a while now is ‘chorionic villus sampling’ (CVS). CVS can be used to collect a bit of tissue from the placenta at around 10-12 weeks gestation.]
With amniocentesis, if abnormalities are found, the mother is offered the chance to terminate her pregnancy. So it’s very important for parents to consider what difference a baby with abnormalities would make to their [desire] to continue with the pregnancy. Which brings up the question… What is a normal baby? Just because the baby has Down’s syndrome, does it not have a right to live like any other child? So this also brings in all the arguements for or against abortion. [Once an abnormality is discovered, one needs] to consider the huge emotional impact it will have on the parents, and the strain on their marriage, having to look after a disabled child. Also considering whether they live in the right conditions to bring up a disabled child, a good economic position with lots of family support. Or, depending on how severe the disability is, whether you want to bring a child into the world that is going to suffer. [Knowledge of the abnormality might cause undue worry to the parents, or it might help them better cope once delivery occurs…]
(TheMedSchoolProject.com Megan Davis)
Dr. Brian Skotko, a Down syndrome specialist at Children’s Hospital Boston who has written a research paper for doctors on how to deliver a diagnosis, said “the vast majority of people with Down syndrome and families affirm that their contributions to their communities are significant, and their lives are very valuable.”
Amniocentesis can on occasion be put to good use. (It was, in fact, first developed to detect Rh blood group incompatibilities between a pregnant woman and the child she was carrying.) But we deceive ourselves if we suppose that, as a routine feature of medical practice, it can simply assist a couple to prepare themselves for their child’s birth. It does exactly the opposite. It sets our foot on a path that is difficult to exit. We may tell ourselves that we only want to know the health of the fetus, that abortion is not a possible end in view, but, for the most part, I think, we thereby deceive ourselves. [Once a parent knows that the child has a deformity, the thought processes begin and the flesh is weak and the devil is active; one might be against abortion, but with pressures from family, one’s spouse, the obstetrician, and society, things might change.] The technology carries its own momentum, which, if not irresistible, is nevertheless very powerful. It prepares us not for the kind of commitment that parenthood requires, an unconditional commitment, but for a kind of [intense] responsibility that finite beings [moight easily] reject. The time of pregnancy will be better spent learning to love the child we have been given before we begin to evaluate and assess that child’s capacities. Christians could do the world a considerable favor and could bear substantial witness to the meaning of God’s own love for the world if they would simply say no to routinized prenatal screening – thereby saying to their children and, by implication, to others: “It’s good that you exist.”
(Gilbert Meilaender’s Bioethics: A Primer For Christians)
Gender Re-assignment Surgery
“Before I knew I was transsexual, I went through years of pain… It’s only now that I’m living as a woman that I finally feel comfortable with myself” (“Real Lives – Three Transsexuals”). This quote, from a male-to-female transsexual individual who was living as a woman while waiting to qualify for gender re-assignment surgery (GReS), demonstrates the agony that those who struggle with gender identity disorders (GIDs) undergo while ‘trapped’ in the physical and social conventions of their biological gender, as well as the relief that comes with living as a member of their “true” gender. 
Though some may argue that use of surgery for purposes of treating GIDs is morally unacceptable since transsexuality does not belong within the domain of medicine, GReS is morally permissible. In cases in which adult patients have been suffering from a severe gender-related mind-body imbalance which interferes with their everyday life functions, gender reassignment surgery is a morally permissible treatment option, provided that the patients requesting it are competent and are able to pay for the surgery out-of-pocket as an elective surgery without any serious financial detriment to their dependent family members. Since the inner struggle that goes with transsexuality is something that can be fixed by changing the body through surgery, surgery is a viable treatment option. If someone has the money to achieve a desired image that he or she feels ‘matches what’s on the inside,’ along with enough competence to fully understand the risks and benefits of undergoing surgery, then he or she, as an autonomous agent, has the right to do so.
(Maggie Hume; Pacific University)
What’s the medical truth about the hormone, drug, and body mutilation procedures which attempt to “change” a person’s [gender] — that are even being promoted to and used on children?
This is a very frightening subject. The mental health profession recognizes “gender identity disorder” as a psychological affliction — not an inborn biological condition. But many in the field are afraid to research it or even discuss for fear of retribution from the powerful homosexual movement. As a result the radical activists, fringe medical practitioners, and far-left politicians are given free reign in the public forum on this issue.
In fact, the Massachusetts Legislature is considering the Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes Bill — which would change our laws to force all citizens to accommodate these behaviors (and even promote them in our schools), and punish people severely who don’t agree. Is this the right thing to do?
(Massresistance.org)
Testosterone is an androgen, one of a number of steroid hormones in the body that stimulate the development of male sex organs and male secondary characteristics, such as beard growth or a deep voice. MTFs will therefore usually take an anti-androgen drug in addition to their female hormones. Estrogens alone do not lower testosterone levels and anti-androgens alone lead to serious bone density loss. One advantage of taking an anti-androgen is being able to reduce the estrogen dose taken. If they undergo transsexual surgery, they can drop the anti-androgen. (PositivelyAlone.com)
Is it ethical to perform a surgery whose purpose is to make a male look like a female or a female to appear male? Is it medically appropriate? Sexual Reassignment Surgery (SRS) violates basic medical and ethical principles and is therefore not ethically or medically appropriate.
(1) SRS mutilates a healthy, non-diseased body. To perform surgery on healthy body involves unnecessary risks; therefore, SRS violates the principle “primum non nocere (first, do no harm).”
(2) Candidates for SRS may believe that they are trapped in the bodies of the wrong [gender] and therefore desire, or more accurately demand SRS; however, this belief is generated by a disordered perception of self. Such a fixed, irrational belief is appropriately described as a delusion. SRS, therefore, is a “category mistake”- it offers a surgical solution for psychological [(and spiritual)] problems such as a failure to accept the goodness of one’s masculinity or femininity, lack of secure attachment relationships in childhood with same [gender] peers or a parent, self-rejection, untreated gender identity disorder, addiction to [autosexuality] and fantasy, poor body image, excessive anger, severe psychopathology in a parent, etc.
(3) SRS does not accomplish what it claims to accomplish. It does not change a person’s [gender]; therefore, it provides no true benefit.
(4) SRS is a “permanent,” effectively unchangeable, and often unsatisfying surgical attempt to change what may be only a temporary psychological/psychiatric/[spiritual] condition.
(Richard Fitzgibbons MD, Philip Sutton PhD, and Dale O’Leary)
Rom 1:26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections:
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
[As we well know, SRS is] morally objectionable from a Christian perspective. God created ‘male and female’ (Gn 1:27). The fact that they were told to reproduce their kind (v.28) reveals that this was understood as biological maleness and femaleness. Whatever our psychological or sociological tendencies, we should seek to bring them into conformity to the way God made us physically. (Christian Ethics by Norman Geisler)