Babies As Organ Farms
Gregory Koukl
Greg responds to a "stunning" L.A. Times editorial that states we should harvest the organs of anencephalic babies because it can now be morally justified.
| I want to read to you an editorial from the June 8 L.A. Times . It's a quite stunning editorial. I have never read anything quite like this. I was surprised that the L.A. Times editorial board took the position a position like this. It is called "An Exception to the Rule," and subtitled, "Parents should be able to donate organs of infants born without brains." The editorial reads, "Under the laws of every state and under prevailing medical ethics, human organs cannot be removed for transplant until the donor is legally dead. There is a good rationale for this: to prevent abuses. But every rule needs an exception, and one is warranted in the tragic cases of anencephalic newborns. Anencephaly is a congenital birth defect in which the infant is born without a forebrain and a cerebrum, but is able to survive for a short time with a brain stem that permits breathing, sucking, and other autonomic functions. Without higher brain functions, they can never experience consciousness, thoughts, emotions, pain, or anything remotely resembling a human being. Few survive more than a few days, yet their organs cannot be used to fill the desperate need for transplants to other infants because the organs deteriorate badly if doctors must wait for natural death to occur." Are you following this? We're talking about a severely handicapped individual with a brain stem, automatic responses, but no cognitive functions. This is a tragic circumstance, but the infants are now protected by law because they are human beings who are alive. The law disallows them for being used as donors of their organs because in the process of having their organs taken from them they are killed. If you recall in 1992, Baby Theresa in Florida was the subject of a lot of discussion and a court decision regarding this very issue. The court ruled to protect the child because the child was not dead yet. I did a commentary at the time called "I'm Not Dead Yet."
In any event, this editorial goes on to say that "Now the council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs of the American Medical Association has proposed to allow removal of organs before death as long as the parents agree and two doctors concur in the diagnosis of anencephaly. Nearly half of all children under age two waiting for hearts, livers, and kidneys die before a suitable organ is found. While not all of the 1,000 to 2,000 anencephalics born yearly in this country are suitable donors, many of them could save young lives. Doubters worry that this could send us down a slippery ethical and legal slope in which infants with other neurological impairments and elderly people with dementia would be sacrificed for their organs. But medical ethics and the law constantly change to reflect new understanding of human physiology. Two decades ago, the law caught up with medical science and recognized that life ends when the brain ceases to function even if the breathing and other functions continue. Anencephaly is a wretched tragedy for parents. Many, perhaps most yearn at least for the moral satisfaction of saying that they have saved the lives of other ill infants if only the law permitted organ donation. It is time for the legislature of California and other states to amend the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act to allow this exception." Simply put, the L.A. Times says that we ought to get with the times here because we know something now that we didn't know then. Something allows us to morally justify taking the life of a severely handicapped anencephalic human being in order to get its organs and help others with their organs. They view this, though a violation of the law, as an appropriate time when we should make an exception to a moral principle. Melinda the Enforcer made an interesting observation. If this is not a human, then how is this an exception to the law? If it doesn't qualify as a genuine, bonafide human being under the law--as they argue in this article--it doesn't have anything remotely resembling human beings--that's their wording. It doesn't have anything remotely resembling human beings. Now, if it doesn't remotely resemble a human being, then it isn't covered by the law and you can farm these children for their organs. There shouldn't be any problem taking their organs because they are not humans. First they say we should make an exception in this case, then they try to argue that it isn't human. If it isn't really human, it seems no exception needs to be made and we should be able to farm these beings for their organs with no fanfare. The article comments, "Doubters will raise the question that this will send us down a slippery ethical and legal slope in which infants with other neurological impairments and elderly people with dementia would be sacrificed for their organs." It is interesting that the writers don't say here, No, that won't happen. What they say is, "But medical ethics and the law constantly change to reflect new understandings of human physiology." What's interesting here is that they don't deny that this could be the slippery slope that leads us there, they just say sometimes we get new information. By the way, there is no new information in human physiology that justifies this particular action. It isn't like we know that these children who we thought were alive are now dead. They're not. They are still alive, and that is why the comparison with being brain dead misses the point altogether. When we talk about somebody being brain dead, and our discovery of that state, and an application of that rule, it is simply a clarification on when one actually is dead. In other words, scientists help us to pinpoint more clearly when one actually dies, and someone who is brain dead is dead. Just because machines can keep other bodily functions going for a season, it doesn't mean that the human being is still alive. It is simply a clarification on when one actually dies. And the point, of course, is that we don't want to do to a living human being what we should only do to a dead one--in this case, bury them. In other words, this scientific evidence just helps us to pinpoint more precisely the time of death so that we can treat dead people like dead people and living people like living people, but there is no comparison with the situation of anencephalic infants.
I am uncertain as to what we know now that we didn't know before that makes it legitimate for us to take the organs of another human being that is severely handicapped, and kill them in the process, for the sake of helping someone else. This is a purely utilitarian viewpoint of human beings. In other words, these poor children, like Baby Theresa two years ago, allegedly have value in that their organs can help others, but they don't have value in themselves and that is why their life can be forfeit. My point is that this is not a good comparison because clearly in the first case of brain dead people at the other end our whole desire is to know precisely when the human being ceases to exist as a living human being so that we can treat it as a dead human being and not accidentally treat a living human being like a dead human being. Dead human beings we can farm for their organs, living human beings we care for as valuable individuals. Clearly, in the case of anencephalics we have living human beings. If we follow this guideline that is offered in the editorial, the question then is, How handicapped does a human have to be before she can be used as an organ farm? That's really the question. There is no question about whether this child is a human being. I am going to hammer this issue home every single time it comes up because people who write and argue on these issues like to change the definitions of words just like they did here in the L.A. Times when they say that this child does not have anything remotely resembling a human being. Well, the elephant man didn't resemble a human being in many significant ways. We would do well to watch that movie every couple years because there is one point where he is being attacked in a railway station some people were frightened by his appearance. They cornered him and the mob drew down on him because he was so hideous looking. Finally, he looked them all in the face and said, "I am not an animal! I am a human being." Human beings are "be like" kinds of things and not "look like" kinds of things. Once we accept this line of thinking that the L.A. Times offers here, then it is simply a question of how severe the handicap has to be before we don't have to treat this individual as a valuable human being and we can treat them simply like an organ farm. Under this line of thinking, for example, why not use other severely handicapped humans that are able to survive but don't have those other things that the L.A. Times thinks makes a person a genuine, bonafide human being. Why don't we use them as kind of a potted plant that we tap for blood once a week--a living blood bank so to speak? Why not? If they don't look right, if they don't think right, if they don't have the capacity for thought, if they have a number one IQ, why not do that? The terrifying thing about using this as a clear case counter-example to show how ludicrous and how dehumanizing this way of thinking is, is that somebody is going to answer my rhetorical question with, Yeah, why not? Why shouldn't we take Down's Syndrome children and use them for those purposes? My question is, Where is the dividing line? Isn't it curious that we can't even do this with a pig without raising a significant ruckus? Do you remember a few years back when a pig heart was transplanted into a baby's body? This point that the L.A. Times makes that some will complain that this will put us at the top the of slippery slope and we will slide down it, is false. This isn't the top of the slippery slope--this is the bottom. We were at the top 20 years ago. This is advocacy for infanticide, pure and simple. That's what is being advocated here. We can take a human being and kill it in order to use its body parts to help others. What is it about this one that sets it apart from all other human beings? It is handicapped. Severely handicapped human beings are not really human. You know what it takes to be a human being? It is very simple. All you have to be is the offspring of two other human beings. Every single offspring of a human being is also a human being. Period. End of issue. It is a sufficient test for the humanness of any organism that it is the offspring of another human being. That is biology. That is science. That is fact. Whether you want to say that it may be a human being but you disqualify it as valuable because it doesn't meet your requirements for personhood, well, that is another issue. But my question is always going to be, What is the difference between a human being and a person? And if you attempt to give me a list, every single element on your list is going to be flawed. You are either going to find out that things that aren't persons like animals will turn out to be persons and ought to be protected by the law, and other things that are obviously human persons, like two-year-old children, will turn out not to be persons and should not be protected by the law. The fact of the matter is, human beings are personal beings by nature. That is what kind of being a human being is--personal. Our law ought to protect, as it does up until now under the Fourteenth Amendment, all human beings regardless of how handicapped they are. It is not up to the purview of the state legislature to rule on this because this has to do with our civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution. All children, regardless of their IQ, regardless of their brain state, if they are human beings, deserve our protection. |
This is a transcript of a commentary from the radio show "Stand to Reason," with Gregory Koukl. It is made available to you at no charge through the faithful giving of those who support Stand to Reason. Reproduction permitted for non-commercial use only. ©1995 Gregory Koukl
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