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In Pennsylvania, there lived a 52-year-old man named Robert Osterrieder. Osterrieder was a hard-working beloved family man who was admitted to the hospital to fight for his life. He spent his life with a struggle of vision problems, they were now increasingly getting worse and worse. After several months on life support and battling his medical condition, his family realized that he did not have long to live. Osterrieder had registered as an organ donor, but due to his poor health, his organs were too unstable to be harvested after death (Marcus, 2016, para. 1-4). His wife and kids faced a difficult decision: would harvesting Osterrieder his organs before he passed be unethical even if he wanted to? Would it be unethical if organ donation was something the patient wanted, regardless of the patient not being able to verbally say it? Many see organ donation as “unethical” as seen in this example; while in some eyes, organ donations are acceptable regardless of person, religion, and beliefs. Organ donations are ethical when the donor has been considered to be medically dead when the donor has accepted the decision to donate organs, and finally when the donations are beneficially helping another person.
Ethical behavior can be odd to some, especially to those who are going through a rough time. One’s actions can be contradictory to their beliefs or thoughts. According to Merriam-Webster, ethics can be defined as “the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation” (Merriam-Webster, 2019). In Robert Osterrieder’s case, he had registered to become a donor through the state government and would donate blood routinely (Marcus, 2016, para. 5). Many can argue that Mr. Osterrieder has given consent to donate his organs after he died because of the registration and proof on his state identification card. Furthermore, how could one consent to having their organs donated when they are still alive and breathing? For a clear reason, if someone is talking and able to make rational decisions, they can easily decide on their own. As in Osterrieder’s case, he was still battling for his life with the help of life support. Doctors stated to the family that his organs would not be able to survive if life support was terminated (Marcus, 2016, para 4). The final decision would have to come from Mr. Osterrieder’s family to either fulfill their beloved family member’s wishes or let him live with medical support. Based on Osterrieder’s initial wishes, it would be ethical for the family to allow medical professionals to harvest and donate his organs.
Another dilemma many families face is deciding whether a person can be considered dead or not. In Robert Osterrieder’s case, machinery was sustaining his life. Deciding to remove life support, his body would slowly give out and he would be considered dead in over an hour (Marcus, 2016, para. 5). Would Osterrieder be considered already dead? During the 1970s, it was believed that removing anyone from life support was murder (Miller & Truog, 2008, para. 21). However, it is also argued that if a patient is removed from life support, it is the illness that kills them, not the person terminating life support. Taking this into consideration, removing the life support from Osterrieder, the illnesses he was facing would ultimately take his life. In an article written by Franklin Miller and Robert Truog, many doctors need “dead donors whose bodies are still alive” (Miller & Truog, 2008, para. 8). This is how medical professionals viewed the case of Robert Osterrieder. His family began to try to overrule the hospital’s ethical committee decision not to harvest Osterrieder’s organs because he was officially considered dead, but since Osterrieder was still alive, doctors needed verbal consent from him to continue with his wish to donate his organs (Marcus, 2016, para. 6). If medical professionals and the committee agreed with the family and harvested his organs would be considered unethical.
When going into depth, many medical professionals and those against organ donations believe that consenting to donate is more than just signing a document stating that one is registered to donate their organs. In “Organ Donations, Brain Death and the Family”, an article written by Ana Iltis (2015), the author begins to say, “…valid informed consent is ethically required for organ donation when organs will be retrieved from individuals declared dead using neurological criteria… Valid consent is a threshold lower than theoretically ideal consent but higher than authorization, which requires only agreement or permission regardless of what a person understands”, meaning that she believes as well as others that someone committing to donating their organs should be fully informed of what they are getting themselves into. She then begins to say that the donor must get every piece of information they can get their hands on, whether it be the good side of the procedures or the bad side of the procedures. At times, when individuals sign up to become donors, they are not always given the full material information to explain the side effects of the donation, whether it be emotional, or physical causing conflict between the patient himself and the hospital. That sparked the idea of valid informed consent. Robert Osterrieder was not fully informed about the consequences and the aftermath of organ donation procedures (Marcus, 2016, para. 8), which leads to the fact that MR. Osterrieder was not officially given valid informed consent. By that very fact, Osterrieder had given consent to become an organ donor by having his government ID validated with the symbol of an organ donor. Although the symbol of organ donor on his government ID stated he had registered, medical officials still did not have any knowledge if Osterrieder got his valid informed concert when he first registered.
Lastly, the idea of letting Osterrieder’s family choose if it would be ethical to harvest his organs can give others an idea of how many people he would be helping out. Since the beginning of time, humans have been made with the need to help out others in all sorts of situations (Saleeby, 2001, pg. 93). Humans were engraved with their need at birth, and grow rapidly as they get older. It can lead to difficult aspects in one’s life but one still needs to continue to help others. This is a theory called reciprocity or “self-determination”. Reciprocity or “self-determination” is the idea that motivated behavior that is rewarding from oneself or others (Oarga et al., 2015, pg. 45). With this idea in mind, Robert Osterrieder knew what he was getting himself into and was okay with the consequences and the effects of the donation after. It would be ethical for the family to continue with Mr. Osterrieder’s wishes to donate his organs to help others live another day.
Many disagree with the idea that the family should pull the plug on the life support just so Osterrieder could have his organs harvested. Many agree with the committee and medical professionals; they believe that their point is valid and outdo the argument of donating Osterrieder organs as ethical. The reason is that Mr. Osterrieder is not completely dead. Machinery is sustaining his life, leading to the fact that he is still alive, and it would be inhumane for them to harvest his organs. No one may not know if Mr. Osterrieder was fully informed about his decision to donate his organs. Also, many argue that allowing the family to go through with harvesting his organs, would spark potential criminal activity in the hospital black market, in a sense. Those who take advantage of patients on life support, secretly steal off of the patient while no one is looking and might profit off of it on the black market.
It is evident that with Osterrieder’s wishes should be respected and followed through. The family has the right to decide to donate and harvest Osterrieder’s organs. Osterrieder was considered dead in the eyes of medically trained professionals and knew that when the day came, he would have to donate his organs. Osterrieder knew the consequences of this type of procedure, even if he was not given his full “valid informed content”. Robert Osterrieder gave his life in many ways, whether it be donating blood or registering as a donor. It is in our genes to help others when we are most needed without wanting something in return. The family’s decision, as well as Osterrieder’s decision to donate his organ,s has given another patient the chance to live another day. For many reasons, the decision to donate and harvest the organs from a dying 52- 52-year-old beloved hard-working human is ethical.
References
- Ethics. (2019). In Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethics
- Iltis, A. S. (2015). Organ donation, brain death, and the family: valid informed consent. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 43(2), 369-382 14p. Retrieved from https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=109823397&site=eds-live&scope=site
- Marcus, A. D. (2016). The difficult ethics of organ donations from living donors. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-difficult-ethics-of-organ-donations-from-living-donors-1466993281
- Miller, F., & Truog, R. (2008). Rethinking the ethics of vital organ donations. Hastings Center Report, 38(6), 38-46 9p. Retrieved from https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.25165390&site=eds-live&scope=site
- Oarga, C., Stavrova, O., & Fetchenhauer, D. (2015). When and why is helping others good for well-being? The role of belief in reciprocity and conformity to society’s expectations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45(2), 242-254 13p. Retrieved from https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgao&AN=edsgcl.406157226&site=eds-live&scope=site
- Saleeby, D. (2001). Human behavior and social environments: a biopsychosocial approach. New York: Columbia University Press. Retrieved from https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=75558&site=eds-live&scope=site
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