A comprehensive look at the many issues raised by organ transplants. From A Midwestern Doctor at midwesterndoctor.com:
Exploring the Ambiguity of Brain Death, the Ethics of Organ Harvesting, and the Mysterious Transference of Consciousness
Story at a Glance:
•Transplanted organs are typically sourced from “brain dead” donors. However, brain death is a surprisingly ambiguous diagnosis, and since its invention, many have argued patients who are still consciously aware are having their organs transplanted.
•Over the years, compelling evidence has accumulated suggesting this occurs, and has worsened as there has been a greater and greater need for donor organs, leading to a cruel blackmarket overseas where they are directly harvested from living donors (e.g., prisoners). Recently, government investigations showed systemic issues exist within the organ donation process that are causing inappropriate organ harvesting to occur.
•When organs are transplanted, memories, personalities, preferences, and skills (including what happened at the donors moment of death) have been repeatedly observed to transfer from the donor to recipient in a manner that strongly suggests a real transference is occurring—raising significant questions as to where our consciousness or memories comes from and who we actually are, along with the ethics of sourcing organs from non-consenting donors.
•Maintaining the viability of transplanted organs is quite challenging (e.g., making vaccination a precondition for transplants, despite evidence showing the COVID vaccine caused transplants to fail). In many cases, these challenges appear to result from aspects of consciousness being transferred from the donor to recipient.
•This article will review these points along with our preferred approaches to restoring failing organs and releasing retained emotional trauma.
When I first applied for a driver’s license, I was asked if I wanted to designate myself as an organ donor. Given my learned distrust of societal institutions (e.g., medicine) and a few concerning stories I’d come across, I opted to not be an organ donor. However, I also felt quite conflicted about doing so, particularly since I strongly believe in following the golden rule (treat others as you would want to be treated) and knew that if I needed a transplant I would be desperate for the appropriate donor to be willing to give the gift of life to me.
