Controversial Organ Donation Proposal Rejected

00:17-00:25                                 

“A controversial proposal that would have allowed doctors to discuss organ donation with the families of patients with disabilities before they reached a decision to cease life support was rejected recently.”

• If doctors are not allowed to speak to families of patients with disabilities about organ donation they should also not be able to speak with families of patient who do not have disabilities about organ donation when they have not reached the decision to cease on life support. Families with patients on life support will both be going through the grieving process; this proposal shouldn’t be exclusive to patients with disabilities.
• The controversial proposal seems more as a plan for what the families should being to think about what will happen to the patient’s body after they are deceased.

0:28-0:36

“Many disability advocates were against the proposal, worrying that it would allow a hospital’s organ procurement staff to improperly influence end-of-life decision making.”

• The number of advocates that were against this proposal could have been five people and the word many would’ve still been used.
• End-of-life decision making is difficult for all families not only families with disabilities. Patients with disabilities are in the same predicament when on life support, both families must make difficult decisions.
• If the procurement staff follows the same guidelines with the family of the patient who do not have disabilities, how could using the same guidelines improperly influence the end-of-life decision making for families with a life support patient who is disabled?

0:37-0:48

“The rejection of the proposal is a particular victory for the disability advocacy group Not Dead Yet, which has spent the last two years campaigning against the proposal.”

• The disability advocacy group Not Dead Yet fought for the rejection of a proposal that prepares families of patients with disabilities before they reached a decision to cease life support.
• Having in depth information before the patient is deceased on how to proceed after the patient has pasted on is helpful to the family that must prepare for any outcome that happen.

0:47-0:59

“Not Dead Yet stated that their stance against the rejected proposal was based on their belief that it violated longstanding ethical protections against potential pressure being placed on gravely ill people.”

• There are differences between people with disabilities and other people that are gravely ill.
• The family members that are making the decision not the disabled patient that is on life support.
• Doctors not being able to explain organ donations to families of the families of patients with disabilities before they reached a decision to cease life support is a putting the life of another patient who is in need of the organs life in jeopardy. The process of deciding whether the ill patient will be an organ donor is a long and difficult process for some families. Doctors being able to explain the process at an earlier time can save a patient who is in need of an organ.