Among potential revisions is a proposal to replace the brain-death standard of “irreversible cessation” of key brain or respiratory functions with one in which permanent “coma” and “loss of brainstem reflexes” could be counted as death.
In their letter, the Catholic bishops and the bioethics center argue that the rewrite “would replace the standard of whole brain death with one of partial brain death.”
“The basis for our objection is that the proposed revision will allow patients who exhibit partial brain function to be declared ‘legally dead’ when they are not biologically dead,” the Catholic groups wrote.
“Nothing in Catholic teaching provides support for lowering the criterion to something less than ‘irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain,’” the groups said. “We are opposed to lowering that standard in the absence of compelling scientific evidence.”
The letter further acknowledged that while organ donation is a “generous act” that aligns fully with Catholic ethical teaching, it can only be performed so long as “the proper conditions are met.” The suggestion that “partial brain death is sufficient for vital organ retrieval” could dissuade individuals from becoming donors themselves, they said.
The new standards, meanwhile, could also be used “to justify protocols that actively occlude blood flow to the brain,” leading a transplant team to “directly cause the death of the donor.”