According to a lawsuit filed in New York City, doctors are being pressured to declare people brain dead so that their organs may be harvested for transplants.
The whistleblower lawsuit by Patrick McMahon, a former nurse practitioner, claims the non-profit New York Organ Donor Network hired coaches to train employees on how to be more persuasive to doctors and family members.
Rita Marker of the Patients Rights Council tells OneNewsNow the lawsuit is overdue.
"When you have someone who is truly dead, other parts of his or her body can certainly be used for transplant. But the operative word is 'truly' dead," she notes.
"There are so many different definitions of brain death -- you could be considered brain dead in one state, and across the state line, which could be a mile away, you could be considered not dead."
For example, when a person is still breathing on his or her own, that person is not dead.
"But they are stretching the limits of this now, and so there are people who are pushing, pushing, pushing," Marker declares. "And they justify it by saying, Well, this person's going to be dead really soon, anyway. Why can't they be helpful in saving someone else's life? -- that's the rationale. The point, however, is that they are not dead."
Marker poses a different scenario to illustrate her point: If a person's organs were not to be transplanted, and the person was still breathing, would the family agree to go ahead and have him or her buried or cremated while still alive? She believes "they would probably say no. They would be horrified, because the person is actually not dead."
Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow.com
