That Was Then (and Them), This Is Now (and Us)

Two hundred years ago, there was money to be made "harvesting" the teeth of the battlefield dead to be used to make dentures for the wealthy. We today think that barbaric and ghoulish.

Today, there is even more money to be made "harvesting" the vital organs of the roadway not-quite-dead to be transplanted into the bodies of the wealthy-by-world-standards, and then more money to be made by keeping those people on immune-suppressant drugs for the rest of their lives. And we think this civilized and humane.

Isn't that odd?

Is Big Organ About to Face a Reckoning?

On this dusty little blog, I've been linking for years to news reports of "dead" people "waking up" as they were about to be chopped for parts. I long ago became one of the "conspiracy theorists" who understands that Big Organ is as corrupt, if not more so, as any other "Big 'X'" industry.

I will never consent to be either an organ donor nor a recipient, for the incentive structure in Big Organ is just to perverse: I don't want to be murdered to "save" another's life, nor do I want another to murdered to "save" mine (*).

Besides which, how awful must it be to spend the rest of your life as, in effect, a drug-addict to anti-rejection drugs? Not only is the organ transplant procedure a big money-maker for Big Hospital, but so too is the life-long prescription for immune-suppression drugs -- and the drugs to fight the subsequent infections -- a big money-maker for Big Pharma.

Always remember, and never forget: Big Medicine is not in the business of curing sick people, they are in the business of "treating disease" ... and a cured patient is a missed profit.

(*) ps: My life has already been saved by the murder of Christ; that's sufficient.

Matt Walsh: Man Is Almost Sacrificed In The Name Of Organ Donation

Matt Christiansen: RFK Jr. and HHS Investigate Botched Organ Harvesting | Whoops, They’re Still Alive

More on "Big Organ Lost One"

I have written about this case before, back in October, 2024.

The news item linked below doesn't claim such, but an early statement in the piece *might* be understood as implying that the reason the man was declared to be "brain dead" in the first place was due to malpractice.

Understand this -- (the fact isn't examined as in depth as it deserves) some of the higher ups in the Donation-Industrial Complex were insistent upon chopping this man for parts, even after it was undeniable that he was not dead.

Understand this -- the *reason* that they now sedate the "corpses" from whom they harvest organs is because they *know* that there is a strong possibility that those people are not actually dead; there have been *many* cases, all across the world, in which "dead" people "woke up" as the surgeons were cutting into them. And thus, they now sedate the "dead" people before cutting into them.

Understand this -- once you know this truth about vital organ transplant (*), it is immoral -- it is damning of your immortal soul -- to take part, in any way, in this industry. It is better to die than to have the heart transplanted into your chest of a man who was murdered to make that heart available.

(*) The one exception I can think of would be to receive a "living donation" of a kidney.

Kentucky family demands answers after organs nearly taken from living man: 'Living nightmare'

Big Organ Lost One

I've written about this phenomenon several times over the years. And this is why the human chop-shops frequently sedate the "corpses" they are about to break down for parts. I guess they forgot to do that this time.

This is why I oppose the transplanting of vital organs as being immoral:
- because the "donors" aren't always dead;
- because the body-chopper declaring that the "donor" is dead does not mean that he is actually dead;
- because hospitals are not in the business of saving lives and alleviating suffering, they are in the business of making money ... and there is a lot of money to be made in selling off the vital organs of "donors".

Dead Man Wakes Up as Doctors Prepare to Harvest His Organs

This is your socialized medicine

I'm looking at *you* B.Prokop and Victor Reppert.

Wesley Smith at LifeNews.com: Netherlands and Belgium are Euthanizing Mentally Ill Patients and Harvesting Their Organs

There is *always* a "god of the system" ... and that god will be served. If the "god of the system" isn't the Living God, the God who created men, the God who sustains the lives of men, it will be a god created by men, a god which devours the lives of men.

'Talitha koum!'

Susan D. Harris (at American Thinker): Hospital Spokesman Dictates Limits For Hope and Prayer --

Sam Singer, spokesman for the Children's Hospital Oakland, has taken it upon himself to dictate the limits of hope and prayer.

Singer is one of the players in the gut wrenching saga of Jahi McMath, the 13-year-old Northern California girl who went in for a tonsillectomy and ended up brain dead. The second girl in two years to suffer severe brain damage under similar conditions at Children's Hospital Oakland, the case obviously has the hospital on the defensive.

In a jaw-dropping statement, made on behalf of the hospital, Mr. Singer, speaking with greater authority than anyone could have imagined, told the world: "There is, unfortunately, no amount of hope, no amount of prayer that can bring her back."

If Mr. Singer wants to tell us she is brain dead, fine. If he wants to tell us that an independent physician also declared her brain dead and "there was no question of that," - fine. She was indeed pronounced dead only three days after she underwent surgery to treat sleep apnea. The "complications" she suffered have not been detailed, but we do know she went into cardiac arrest. We also know that after an independent review of the case, a judge gave the go ahead to remove the life support that was keeping her alive. It was at this point that hospital spokesman Sam Singer threw down his theological gauntlet.
...
It is not uncommon for medical miscalculations to be made, or for God to be underestimated. Just last year, a young man in the U.K. was declared brain dead by four specialists after he suffered devastating injuries in a car crash. His parents refused to give up hope, his father begged doctors to check again, and two weeks later faint signs of brain activity were detected. Seven weeks later, he was released from the hospital. If not for his parent's perseverance, he would be dead.

We don't know what will happen in the case of little Jahi McMath; but with every ounce of my being, and for the sake of everyone who dares to hope and pray for loved ones around the world, may God prove the doubters wrong once again and say "Talitha koum!" - "Little girl, I say to you, arise."

Whatever the outcome, may we never lose hope, nor our faith in the power of prayer - and may we never be guilty of that greater sin...causing others to lose theirs.

As one wag put it: "The problem with living in a less religious society isn’t that people don’t think about God but that they think God has a position in their bureaucracy (below theirs)."

Ilíon, do you see what's happening here?

B.Prokop: "Ilíon, do you see what's happening here?"

Oh, I do, indeed! "What's happening here" is that B.Prokop was demonstrating his leftist intellectual hypocrisy. If Gentle Reader really needs me to flesh this out, I will, so long as you help me see what you're not quite getting.

MEANWHILE, for Gentle Reader's edification and/or education, here are a number of recent new items illustrating what *really* goes on under systems of socialized medicine ... of course, these news items are "via ideologically-filtered media, i.e., an alternate (un)reality", and are thus not at all to be trusted nor given any credence --

From Denmark: LifeNews.com: 19-Year-Old Recovers as Doctors Start to Harvest Her Organs -- I've linked to horror stories like this before, both in Europe and in America. It's apparently worse in Europe, for their official protocols seem to be more relaxed than ours, but it happens here, too.

"Carina’s family is now suing the hospital for damages. Her family’s lawyer claims that she keeps asking whether her doctors were trying to kill her. “Those bandits in white coats gave up too quickly because they wanted an organ donor,” Carina’s father told the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet."

Exactly! There is a noisy political market for the transplanting of vital organs -- and the concomitant ongoing life-long expense of anti-rejection drugs -- but the human beings who will be strip-mined for those vital organs die individually, quietly, tucked away somewhere where no one needs to think about the moral cost.

From Ireland: (Daily) Mail Online: 'The doctors told us to let Simon die. Instead we tried for a baby... and ended up with twins!': The inspirational film-maker who refused to accept the 'death sentence' of Motor Neurone Disease -- "It's time for you to choose to die [because paying for a machine to breathe for you cuts into our budget for "sex change" operations]"

From the UK: The Telegraph: Pensioner left on end of life pathway for four days -- Understand what is being described here: "doctors" deliberately chose to withhold care -- including food and water -- from this old man; "doctors" and "nurses" *deliberately* ignored his pleas for water for four days; then, with the excuse that his organs were "too damaged", "doctors" again *deliberately* choose to not give him food, but rather to put him into an induced coma ... so that his suffering as he died the death-by-hunger-and-thirst that they had *chosen* to inflict upon him would not be so readily apparent.

This is not a one-off, this sort of thing is done all the time under Britain's NHS; this is official policy! These "doctors" will no more face prosecution than do the Dutch and Belgian "doctors" who openly euthanize "patients" who not only didn't ask for it, but actively declined it.

I had previously linked to these stories --

From the Belgium: The Telegraph: Belgian killed by euthanasia after a botched sex change operation

From the Belgium: (Daily) Mail Online: Deaf twins who discovered they were going blind and would never see each other again are euthanized in Belgian hospital

Here is a comment by the blogger 'Wintery Knight' explaining *why* socialized medicine does and must produce such monstrous results -- Wintery Knight: Doctor shortage: how Obamacare makes Americans lose their doctors

The problem is that when government controls health care, they spend the money on things that will buy them more votes. People who need expensive care like this definitely do not get treated. In government-run health care, government takes control of the money being spent by individuals on actual health care in the private sector. They then redirect that money into public sector spending on “health-related” services. Instead of helping people who are really sick, government-run systems cut lose those sick people and concentrate on buying perfectly healthy people things like condoms, abortions, IVF and sex changes. They spread the money around to more people in order to buy more votes. The main goal is to get the majority of people dependent on government so that they continue to vote for bigger government. The few people who need expensive health care? They can just go die in a ditch.

Concerning the Belgian woman who was "killed by euthanasia after a botched sex change operation", my comment at the time was this: "So, rather than actually trying to help this poor confused and mentally-ill woman, the "liberal" answer was to surgically mutilate her sexually (probably at tax-payer expense) ... and then, since that didn't actually help her, as of course it could not, the "liberal" final solution is to put her down."

Can you not see 'Wintery Knight's' explanation being worked out? Before the "sex change" operation, she was perfectly healthy" -- physically, though not mentally nor emotionally. What she *needed* was to understand and incorporate into her psyche the truth that her mother's hatred of her had nothing to do with her, nor her body, nor her sex.

But, there is political hay to be made in using government force and violence to compel those it controls to pay for "sex change" operations, and far less in trying to actually help people as they really need. So, off to be mutilated she goes! And, when it inevitably becomes clear that she's still enslaved to her mother's hatred of her, off to be murdered she goes!

What the poor woman needed was spiritual freedom (which comes, ultimately, only from God) from her mother's hatred of her, what she got is death.

Two-for-one Sale!

I'd read about this some time ago, but had decided at the time to not write about it.

Michael Egnor (quoting Wesley Smith): Belgium offers a two-for-one sale on lethal injection... -- "But, I must say, after fighting against this issue for twenty years, I am not surprised. This is the simple logic of euthanasia consciousness. Once killing is seen as an answer to human suffering, the meaning of the term becomes very elastic and the killable caste, like the universe, never stops expanding."

When are 'vegetables' not?

Shadow to Light: Maybe she felt it -- One may recall that one of the rationalizations for judicially murdering Terri Schiavo was the assertion that she'd not feel anything while dying a slow death of thirst ... as though pain were the criterion of moral determinations.

Michael Egnor: Man in Persistent Vegetative State answers questions via fMRI -- In the comments section, the God-denialists who infest Egnor's blog play to type.

Harvest, aborted

Michael Egnor: "Those bandits in white coats gave up too quickly because they wanted an organ donor,"

Bombshell allegations against New York organ procurement entity

Lydia McGrew: Bombshell allegations against New York organ procurement entity

Unfortunately, most people have made a 'god' of their own time-bound physical lives -- while ignoring their eternal lives -- and so do not care about this sort of thing. And, in fact, they will hate those who try to bring this sort of thing to light, rather than hating the guilty parties.

Until, of course, it happens to them; but then it's too late.


Earlier posts on this topic --

The Organ Transplant Industry is Immoral

'Bioethics' and the Houben Case

The Organ Transplant Industry is Immoral

The organ transplant industry is grossly immoral -- anyone paying attention and keeping in mind human nature could have predicted this sort of thing -- and it can only get worse. Via Kathy Shaidle: Dad rescues ‘brain dead’ son from doctors wishing to harvest his organs – boy recovers completely

And, by the by, the reported incident isn't a one-off -- any number of human beings have been "legally" murdered by the "caring professionals", so as to harvest their organs. And it doesn't happen just in Europe.

Why do you think that the "caring professionals" now routinely dope-up so-called "brain-dead" individuals before hargesting their vital organs? It's to keep them from being so impolite as to waking up during the surgery.

'Bioethics' and the Houben Case

'Bioethics' and the Houben Case ... and asking the deeper question: "Is the 'harvesting' of vital organs for transplant morally permissible ... or is this 'harvesting' tantamount to murder?"

I presume that Gentle Reader has at least heard of the Rom Houben case, that of a (now 46-year-old) Belgian man who, until about three years ago, had been diagnosed for the previous 23 years as being in a "persistent vegetative state" but is said by some to have been conscious the whole time, and in an apparent "medical miracle" is now able to communicate via technology and the help of a caretaker.

And, perhaps Gentle Reader is also aware that "the usual suspects" in "the bioethics community" -- one is featured prominently in the AP/Yahoo news item I linked -- are pooh-poohing this apparent "medical miracle" as merely an example of "facilitated communication" -- which is controversial ... and perhaps as disreputable as the "recovered memories" craze of several years back.

Now, I'm all for a proper skepticism about any claim. But there is such a thing as improper "hyper-skepticism;" there is such a thing as *refusing* to admit the truth which is right in front of your face. And I think that an improper hyper-skepticism is exactly what is going on here with the 'ethicists' (*).


The blogger "Neo-neocon" has a post in which she lays out some thoughtful skepticism about some of the claims being made about Mr Houben's recovery, specifically about whether he really is communicating.

And -- being that I am inherently a highly skeptical person -- I would tend to agree with her on the "facilitated communication" angle. At the same time, one of Neo-neocon's commenters has provided a link to a First Things-hosted
blog post by Wesley J. Smith in which he points out that one of the AP news stories about Mr Houben's apparent recovery answers that very question:

One of the checks Laureys applied to verify Houben was really communicating was to send the speech therapist away before showing his patient different objects. When the aide came back and Houben was asked to say what he saw, that same hand held by the aide punched in the right information, he said.

So: are Dr Laureys and the others directly involved in Mr Houben's case lying, or are the 'bioethicists' engaging in an improper hyper-skepticism?

And, if the 'bioethicists' are engaging in an improper hyper-skepticism -- which is to say, intellectual dishonestly -- what might be the reason for that?

Further, there is nothing in principle to invalidate "facilitated communication" as a concept -- does not the famous scientist Stephen Hawking communicate via "facilitated communication?" Does it matter, in principle, that Hawking's facilitator is a machine, whereas Houben's facilitator is a (presumably) highly-trained human being?

The therapist, Linda Wouters, told APTN that she can feel Houben guiding her hand with gentle pressure from his fingers, and that she feels him objecting when she moves his hand toward an incorrect letter.

Is she mistaken, being mislead by false hope? Does she desire so much to help him communicate that she sees what isn't there? Or, worse, is she lying?

Or do some 'bioethicists' have a vested interest in dismissing (without good reason) the claims being made about Mr Houben's recovery and his after-three-years-of-therapy ability to communicate via "facilitated communication" that they will not see what is in front of their faces?

Is there any rational, non-question-begging, reason to believe that Linda Wouters is mistaken (or worse, lying) about her ability or skill helping Mr Houben communicate? One of the commentors on the Wesley J Smith blog-item raises the objection that Miss Wouters, and no one else, is able to "facilitate" Mr Houben's communication. This sounds like it might be a reasonable objection ... but I don't believe it is. Consider: is it not reasonable to believe that over a long period of therapy, Mr Houben and Miss Wouters have both trained one another such that they are able to cooperate to get his thoughts out? How is it surprising that someone who has not spent so much time working with him may not be able to perceive the queues he makes?

When Anne Sullivan taught Helen Keller to communicate, was *everyone* at once able to communicate with her, or did those who wished to communicate with her directly, without going through Anne Sullivan, have to learn how to do so? Mr Houben's disability is far greater than Helen Keller's was; does it not stand to reason that if he is indeed communicating that it will take great patience and skill-learned-over-time to effectively communicate with him?


And that brings me to another, and critical, point -- the apparent "medical miracle" here is not really that Mr Houben may be able to communicate via "facilitated communication," but rather that he is not, in fact, a "vegetable" after all. Look, at the two pictures which accompany the two AP articles I've linked: Mr Houben certainly *seems* to be consciously attending what his "facilitator" is doing with his hand. Are these photos (unintentionally) misleading? Are they intentionally deceptive? Or, do they show what they appear to show -- a disabled, but conscious, man?

The "miracle" is being misframed. And I believe that most 'bioethicists' have no incentive nor inclination to notice, much less correct, that error.

I am reminded of the videos that Terri Schiavo's family made public when they were trying to save her life from the horrible death-by-dehydration which we, as a society, allowed to be inflicted upon her by her husband and the anti-life and anti-morality 'bioethicists.' In those videos, I saw a severely disabled, but conscious, woman, not a "vegetable."

Gentle Reader may recall that I'd once linked to some interesting comments and moral assertions about my character, which were made in reference to a skunk, a mere animal, about which (until I screwed up my courage to get close enough to it to shoot it) I saw no option but to let it die in exactly the same manner that Terri Schiavo was murdered. Interestingly enough, *most* of those persons, so "morally" concerned about a mere and verminous animal, didn't, and don't, give a damn that an actual human being was judicially murdered in a horrific manner.


And now the deeper question: "Is the 'harvesting' of vital organs for transplant morally permissible ... or is this 'harvesting' tantamount to murder?"

I present two cases which occurred in 2008, one from France and one from the US, which ought to lead to serious reconsideration about the morality of "organ harvesting" in all morally serious persons.

First, the French case (as reported in the UK press, for instance: 'Dead' patient comes around as organs are about to be removed [there were other UK news articles at the time, which I've been unable to find now, which went into more detail about some aspects of this; for instance, more detail about the rule change and comparison to the rules in teh UK] ) -- A "dead" man lives!

The incident happened in January of 2008, but wasn't reported to the public until about six months later: a 45-yead-old man collapsed of a heart attack, was eventually pronounced dead -- and "woke up" as so-called doctors were about to remove his organs for transplant (and, as of that article in June of 2008, the man himself hadn't yet been informed how close he came to being junked for parts).

Apparently, this particular man's life was spared due to the inefficiencies of socialized medicine. There wasn't a (so-called) doctor available at the time he was pronounced "dead" who was qualified to remove his organs; had they gotten to him at once, he likely wouldn't have awakened. OR, had they injected him with certain anesthetic drugs, as is sometimes done (even in the US) for the express, though unadmitted, purpose of preventing things like this occurring, then barring an act of God, he certainly would not have awakened.

At the same time, the fact that he was slated for organ harvesting in the first place is also due to socialized medicine, and the moral laxity which must eventually accompany any form of socialism -- the "determination" that he was "dead" was made pursuant to new guidelines (i.e. a more lax “definition” of when death occurs) which the French government and medical establishments had put in place for the express purpose of procuring an increased supply of vital organs for transplant.

Here are the last three paragraphs of that article --

Other doctors have seen similar incidents, according to the ethics committee report. "During the meeting, other reanimators ... spoke of situations in which a person whom everyone was sure had died in fact survived after reanimation efforts that went on much longer than usual," the report said. "Participants conceded that these were exceptional cases, but ones that were nevertheless seen in the course of a career."

Le Monde said doctors had feared the new transplant rules would confront them with cases of this kind. They believe the existing rules are imprecise and could undermine public support for the removal of organs for transplant. They are pushing for the issue to be discussed as part of a consultation next year on a proposed, new law on medical ethics.

Professor Alain Tenaillon, the organ transplant specialist at the French government's agency of bio-medicine, told Le Monde: "All the specialist literature suggests that anyone whose heart has stopped and has been massaged correctly for more than 30 minutes, is probably brain dead. But we have to accept that there are exceptions.... There are no absolute rules in this area."

Note that bureaucratic non-concern with the actual morality involved. Note that it's more important to keep the public on-board with respect to organ harvesting than it is to get the morality right. Note that bureaucratic CYA by reference to the "suggestions" of "all the specialist literature."

Note that frank admission that "There are no absolute rules in this area" -- which, in context, translated, means, "We don't really have a good and objective metric for determining when a heart-stop patient really is "brain dead," so we're just going to treat those who have not revived after 30 minutes of correct heart-massage as though we know they are dead. Besides, think of all other the lives we can save be pretending we know that this one is lost!" And, after all, the longer the (so-called) doctors wait to begin chopping up the erstwhile "patient" for parts, the greater the probability that his organs will begin to suffer oxygen deprivation, and thus cellular damage.

Under the rule change, even more so than previously, the "medical professionals" in France are working under a perverse incentive to give up on their actual patient and send him to the chop-shop while he's still "fresh" ... all for the greater good of mankind, of course!

Allow me to state this bluntly: If the doctors do not *know* that a person is dead, then it is immoral -- it is wicked -- to "harvest" his organs. It does not matter in the least that a cute little child will certainly die unless "we" take the vital organs of this "dead" adult to transplant into the child. It does not matter in the least that ten, or even one thousand, other persons may benefit if "we" take the vital organs of this one "dead" person -- if "we" do not know that he is, in fact, dead, then we are murdering him if we take his organs.


Reason is not soft-and-fuzzy; reason does not bow to sentimentality: reason does not fudge truth -- and there is always a horrendous social (and personal) price to pay for fudging such an important truth as the one above.


Now, the American case ( Woman Wakes Up After Family Says Goodbye, Tubes Pulled and 'Dead' woman returns to life ) -- A dead (or "dead") woman lives!

Val Thomas, a 59-year-old West Virginia woman, had died (or "died") of a heart attack, and subsequently had been "clinically brain-dead" for 17 hours, in May of 2008 -- except that she didn't stay dead (or hadn't actually died). She "woke up" as the nurses were disconnecting her "corpse" from the life-support machinery -- to which she'd been hooked up that long only in order to keep her organs "fresh" until her family could be convinced that she was dead so that they would authorize organ harvesting.

Now, either she really was dead -- in which case the fact that she came back to life is a very important thing -- OR she was not really dead -- in which case we have no objective way to know that the persons whose organs are being harvested are really dead ... which means that the harvesting of vital organs for transplant is always immoral.

In the US, we supposedly use the more objective and measurable "brain-death" metric to determine that a person has indeed died. This is in contrast to France (with the newly relaxed rules), and much of Europe, were "brain-death" is assumed ... but, apparently, not generally verified.

So, was Val Thomas really dead? Or are the US "medical professionals" behaving as perversely and as immorally as those in France?

=============
But, even if Val Thomas was not really dead, there goes materialism/naturalism, don't you think? Materialism/naturalism posits (for it must) that the human mind is "just a buzz in the brain" ... yet, for seventeen hours, there was no buzz in Val Thomas' brain. Yet, there she is.

=============
(*) 'Ethicists,' especially 'bioethicists,' seem frequently to be more concerned with explaining away moral obligations -- with justifying rank immorality -- than with helping us, as a society, to think properly and more clearly about 'ethics.'