- Feb 5, 2002
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A broad coalition of 151 Catholics including medical professionals, bioethicists, and scholars released a joint letter this past week expressing concern about new guidelines issued by a major neurological society regarding “brain death” — a hotly contested topic in the medical community and among people of faith.
The signers of the letter contend that the current guidelines regarding brain death from the American Association of Neurology (AAN), released in 2023, could lead in practice to patients being incorrectly pronounced “brain dead” and subsequently having their organs removed while still alive.
The Catholic Church has long supported — with Pope Francis carrying on the tradition— the idea of freely given organ donation as an act of charity for others.
However, the signers of the February letter contend that because of what they see as ambiguity in U.S. law and medical practice regarding the declaration of brain death, Catholics ought to remove themselves from their state’s organ donation registry and create advance directives refusing organ donation until those ambiguities are resolved.
Continued below.
www.catholicnewsagency.com
The signers of the letter contend that the current guidelines regarding brain death from the American Association of Neurology (AAN), released in 2023, could lead in practice to patients being incorrectly pronounced “brain dead” and subsequently having their organs removed while still alive.
The Catholic Church has long supported — with Pope Francis carrying on the tradition— the idea of freely given organ donation as an act of charity for others.
However, the signers of the February letter contend that because of what they see as ambiguity in U.S. law and medical practice regarding the declaration of brain death, Catholics ought to remove themselves from their state’s organ donation registry and create advance directives refusing organ donation until those ambiguities are resolved.
Continued below.
Catholics express concern over eroding ‘brain death’ standards
The signers of a recent statement say Catholics ought to remove themselves from their state’s organ donation registry and create advance directives.
www.catholicnewsagency.com
