What's Been Happening:

In America in the past decade, we have had cases in which organ donors have been mistakenly declared deceased and wheeled in for organ donation. Fortunately, in the case of Anthony Thomas Hoover II back in October 2021 in Richmond, Kentucky, the physicians did not go through with the organ donation, and so he was not killed. Likewise, in the case of Larry Black Jr. who had been shot in the head in 2019 in St. Louis, Missouri, the medical staff did not go through with the organ donation once they recognized that he was still alive.

Meanwhile, we have heard reports out of China that sometimes hospitals harvest the organs of people without their consent even before those people have died. According to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Congress:

The American Journal of Transplantation – the top peer-reviewed publication on the subject – published a large-scale computational textual analysis of 2,838 Chinese-language articles published in Chinese academic journals between 1980 and 2015 which supports the inference that transplant surgeons in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) removed organs, including hearts and lungs, in violation of the internationally-accepted  “dead donor” rule, i.e., before donors have been (or could be) declared “brain dead.”

The Legislation We Are Supporting:

In order to ensure the ethical use of organ donation and to reduce the likelihood that someone is mistakenly declared dead and then killed in the organ donation process, we and Kentucky Right to Life are supporting House Bill 510.

House Bill 510 is about the need to pause the organ donation process if a sign of life is still present in the prospective organ donor. Here are the facts about this legislation:

1. It says that hospitals cannot plan ahead to withhold life-saving care for people in order to harvest their organs
2. The recognized signs of life for pausing the organ donation process include spontaneous movement, attempts to speak, purposeful or reflexive responses to stimuli, observed respiratory effort by a patient-initiated attempt to breathe, heart rate changes or blood pressure inconsistent with a death declaration, & neurological or physiological signs suggesting pain perception or neuron activity
3. People who can request a pause in the process include hospital physicians and nurses, organ procurement organization personnel, transplant center personnel, members of the surgical or anesthesiology team, and the prospective organ donor’s spouse or legal representative
4. The pause in the organ donation process is supposed to come with a reassessment (second assessment) of the prospective organ donor's medical status at that time, and the reason for the pause in organ donation process is reported to relevant federal agencies and the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services

In including any spontaneous movement as being sufficient as a sign of life, this legislation could lead to a pause of the organ donation process in some cases in which the prospective organ donor actually can’t be resuscitated. But from a pro-life standpoint focused on the organ donor, the legislation is erring on the side of caution.

The bill does not include other family members like parents, siblings, or their adult children as being able to request a pause in the organ donation process. That might be a way to improve House Bill 510 if you want to mention it in your email.

Upcoming Kentucky Doctors for Life Event:

The upcoming Kentucky Doctors for Life banquet event this year has a keynote speaker, Dr. Heidi Klessig, who is scheduled to address this sort of topic of brain death declarations and organ donation. You can RSVP at the Kentucky Family Association at (502)893-2444, but the cost is $50/person or $60 after June to attend. See the link below at the Kentucky Doctors for Life for more details.