On the day of the procedure, one of her sisters observed movement, and a doctor asked Ms Gallegos to blink, which she did, indicating she was still alive.
“Cadaver transplants” are when a donor has been declared legally dead (brain dead), their organs are then “harvested”. The person’s heart is still beating, but modern medicine has chosen to categorize this person as a “heart beating cadaver”.
Many Orthodox rabbis have described the act of taking organs from a brain-dead person as “Retzicha”, tantamount to murder. However there are those who have approved the procedure.
The problem is a lack of specificity in terminology. Brain Death gets applied to lots of things but the halakhic dispute is over whether cardiac or brainSTEM death is what the Gemara in Yoma is talking about. With cerebral death, the body continues to breath spontaneously. With brainstem death that stops so yes, one can keep the heart beating through artificial infusions and ventilation but the body is technically dead.
“Cadaver transplants” are when a donor has been declared legally dead (brain dead), their organs are then “harvested”. The person’s heart is still beating, but modern medicine has chosen to categorize this person as a “heart beating cadaver”.
ReplyDeleteMany Orthodox rabbis have described the act of taking organs from a brain-dead person as “Retzicha”, tantamount to murder. However there are those who have approved the procedure.
The problem is a lack of specificity in terminology. Brain Death gets applied to lots of things but the halakhic dispute is over whether cardiac or brainSTEM death is what the Gemara in Yoma is talking about. With cerebral death, the body continues to breath spontaneously. With brainstem death that stops so yes, one can keep the heart beating through artificial infusions and ventilation but the body is technically dead.
Delete