In the mid 1980s it was apparent that the need for organ donors exceeded those willing to donate. Some University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) physicians initiated discussion of possible new organ donor categories including individuals pronounced dead by traditional cardiac criteria. However, they reached no conclusion and dropped the discussion. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, four cases arose in which dying patients or their families requested organ donation following the elective removal of mechanical ventilation. Controversy surrounding (...) these cases precipitated open discussion of the use of organ donors pronounced dead on the basis of cardiac criteria. Prolonged deliberations by many committees in the absence of precedent ultimately resulted in what is, to our knowledge, the country's first policy for organ donation following elective removal of life support. The policy is intricate and conservative. Care was taken to include as many interested parties as possible in an effort to achieve representative and broad based support. This paper describes the development of the UPMC policy on non-heart-beating organ donation. (shrink)

The author discusses the ways in which she finds the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center protocol for procuring organs from "non-heart-beating cadaver donors" medically and morally questionable and irreverent. She also identifies some of the factors that contributed to the composition of this troubling protocol, and to its institutional approval.

The Pittsburgh protocol is ethically and legally acceptable as written, but more research is needed to determine if it can be implemented in ways that will observe the procedures that make it ethically acceptable. If so, its desirability as public policy will depend on the number of organs it is likely to generate and its effects on public attitudes toward organ donation generally. In the final analysis, the controversial aspects of this protocol concern symbolic issues about respect for the dead (...) and near dead, rather than substantive concerns that real patient interests will be harmed. (shrink)

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) "Policy for the Management of Terminally Ill Patients Who May Become Organ Donors after Death" proposes to take organs from certain patients as soon as possible after expected cardiopulmonary death. This policy requires clear understanding of the descriptive state of the donor's critical cardiopulmonary and neurologic functional capacity at the time interventions to sustain or harvest organs are undertaken. It also requires strong consensus about the moral and legal status of the donor during (...) dying and confirmation of death. There has been no need for the clarity and precision that this policy relies upon, and thus the needed research and conceptual work has not previously been generated. The empiric base and societal consensus are both too frail to provide justification for this policy at this time. (shrink)

The transplant community has quietly initiated efforts to expand the current pool of cadaver organ donors to include those who are dead by cardiac criteria but cannot be pronounced dead using brain-based criteria. There are many reasons for concern about "policy creep" regarding who is defined as a potential organ donor. These reasons include loss of trust in the transplant community because of confusion over the protocols to be used, blurring the line between life and death, stress on family members, (...) and burdens imposed on health care providers when a long-standing policy regarding who can serve as a cadaver organ donor is unilaterally changed. While these concerns are not sufficient reason for abandoning efforts to broaden existing eligibility standards for cadaver donation, they are sufficient reasons for the transplant community to desist in changing existing standards without widespread professional and public discussion. (shrink)

The Pittsburgh protocol relies heavily on traditional moral distinctions, particularly the principle of double effect, to justify "managing" the dying process of a prospective organ donor in order to yield viable organs for transplantation. These traditional moral distinctions can be useful, particularly in casuistic or case-specific moral analysis, but their invocation here is unpersuasive, and potentially dangerous. The protocol relies on elaborate apologetics to avoid a candid confrontation with the moral challenge it poses—society's willingness to bring about the death of (...) one patient (in isolation and with potential discomfort) in order to benefit another patient. Not only will this protocol fail to solve the problem it purports to address, it threatens to undermine the delicate social accommodations by which we distinguish the living from the dead, permissible "allowings to die" from impermissible killings, and those from whom organs may be removed from those whose bodies must remain inviolate. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the principle of double effect and, to a lesser extent, the distinction between killing and letting die in the context of the Pittsburgh protocol for managing patients who may become non-heart-beating donors or sources of organs for transplantation. It notes several ambiguities and unresolved issues in the Pittsburgh protocol but concludes that neither the principle of double effect nor the distinction between killing and letting die (with the prohibition of the former and the allowance of the latter (...) under some circumstances) erects insurmountable obstacles to the implementation of the protocol. Nevertheless, the requirement of the principle of double effect that the intended good effects outweigh the unintended side effects necessitates careful attention to the probable overall impact of the proposed policy on organ procurement, particularly because public mistrust plays such a significant role in limiting the number of organ donations. (shrink)

Organ transplantation is an accepted therapy for major organ failure, but it depends on the availability of viable organs. Most organs transplanted in the U.S. come from either "brain-dead" or living related donors. Recently organ procurement from patients pronounced dead using cardiopulmonary criteria, so-called "non-heart-beating cadaver donors" (NHBCDs), has been reconsidered. In May 1992, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) enacted a new, complicated policy for procuring organs from NHBCDs after the elective removal of life support. Seventeen months later (...) only one patient has become a NHBCD. This article describes her case and the results of interviews with the health care team and the patient's family. The case and interviews are discussed in relation to several of the ethical concerns previously raised about the policy, including potential conflicts of interest, the definition of cardiopulmonary death, and a possible net decrease in organ donation. The conclusion is reached that organ procurement from non-heart-beating cadavers is feasible and may be desirable both for the patient's family and the health care providers. (shrink)