CHRISTIAN HYPOCRISY ON TRANSPLANTS

 
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Organ transplants are not morally acceptable if the donor or those who legitimately speak for him have not given their informed consent …It is morally inadmissible directly to bring about the disabling mutilation or death of a human being, even in order to delay the death of other persons” (entry 2296).

Many of us would see hypocrisy at this point and would think, “Obviously, it would be a sin not to become a donor and donate as many organs as possible despite this religious system says if life is what comes first. Life does come first even if a person refuses to be a donor their organs should be taken. The relatives should think of it as something good that has to be done.”
 
They would add: “The brain-dead person on life-support cannot speak for herself or himself anymore. So we should take it for granted that if they knew what good they could do they would consent even if they died defiant to the end when requested to become organ donors. Their relatives cannot speak for them when for all we know they could have changed their minds just before expiration. It is none of the relatives’ business. But having said that this may be true it cannot be put into practice. The burden of relatives and victims being afraid of organs being taken without consent will outweigh any good done by just taking the organs. It will in some cases make relatives unwilling to seek medical help in the mistaken belief that the person is dying anyway and it is best to keep them out of hospital. It is hypocrisy to allow killing in war and not enforced organ donation. It is hypocrisy to accept that it is right to conscript young men and send them to the battlefield against their will and to say that people should not be put to death where their organs could save more lives.”
 
The same people could say, “When the homosexuals in America were found to have had the AIDS virus in the early eighties, they should have been put to death to stop them spreading the virus. They did spread it and now millions are dead with millions more dying and suffering. It is better to kill homosexuals to stop AIDS than to let them live and cause the deaths of many innocent children. Human life may be totally valuable but it has to be sacrificed in the interest of protecting more lives. People still may have to die so that more people will live.”

The relatives would be right to put a stop to operating on persons who could come round.

Very evil criminals should be killed to provide organs if it is true that we have free will. An evil person should be sacrificed when the alternative is killing a good person. This however is not capital punishment or degrading the criminal. We reject this thinking for the evil person is a victim of nature and it would be cruel to do that to a being that has no free will.