Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a new rule scheduled to go into effect November 18th. It will change the organ donation process, according to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy. And I quote: "We are holding failing organizations accountable, strengthening patient safeguards, and helping high-performing organizations reach more patients.
We will honor donors' gifts by demanding results." End quote. While tens of thousands of organ donations happen each year in the United States, from everything from Hearts to kidneys to corneas. Before the rule change, a clear line had been drawn between the two teams of doctors involved in organ donations. Doctors working to secure organs for transplants were not to be in conversation with potential donor patients or their families, as an NPR article about this change of rule described. And I quote: "Previously, no one from that team was even supposed to talk to family members until after they had made the heart-wrenching decision to let a loved one go." The rule was intended to prevent pressure that could change the care patients receive.
It was also in place to dispel any doubts that doctors weren't doing everything they could to save patients.
Now, this new rule will allow discussions for organ donation to take place once end-of-life discussions are taking place with the potential deceased donor's agent. That's the actual wording. This new rule now runs the risk of subjecting patients to competing interest. Here's how. Bioethicist Dr.
Lainey Ross put it to NPR: "Quote, when my family member is in that hospital bed, I want to know that we're all on team mom and not worried. The reason the doctors really suggesting the treatments aren't working is because they want the organs for someone else." End quote.
Well, even under the previous rule, there have been cases in which families fear that death was hastened or pronounced prematurely to procure organs for transplant. In 2024, a Kentucky man who was prematurely declared dead was determined to be very much alive by a professional team that was preparing to harvest his organs. Under this new rule, motivated professionals hoping to save other lives could pressure grieving families with the promise that another person might live. All, of course, in the name of the greater good. And a far worse case scenario is if the legalization of so-called medical assistance in dying or death with dignity expands to more states.
When the so-called right to die becomes a duty to die, as it always does, then this kind of policy leaves patients even more vulnerable. After all, the ethics of organ donation are complicated enough as it is. This much-heralded medical breakthrough, which has saved and improved hundreds of thousands of lives, has also created what some have called an organ shortage crisis. In this understanding, there's a need for more people to die in order to save some. In his book *Bioethics: A Primer for Christians*, Gilbert Mylander appropriately warned as follows: "Only by supporting organ transplantation in ways that do not lose the meaning of the body as the place of our personal presence, in ways that preserve the possibility of a humane death, and in ways that do not imply that staying alive as long as possible always has moral trump." Can we become people who give thanks for medical progress without worshiping it or placing our trust in it?
And becoming such people, we may bear a different kind of life-giving witness to our world.
So many of the advances in medical technology, including organ donation, are simply incredible. People now live longer and better than could have been imagined just a few decades ago. But our good intentions are simply not enough. In fact, they can blind us to a whole new set of moral dangers that come with this progress. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with.
Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with Dr. Timothy Paget. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, or for a version of this commentary that you can download and share with others, go to Breakpoint.org. Breakpoint listeners in Colorado, we're excited to invite you to join us for an event at Colorado Christian University with Dr.
Christopher Watkins on "Remaining Human in the AI Age" on Monday, November 16th at 7 p.m. AI promises remarkable opportunities, but with them comes the risk of misshaping what it means to be human. Human beings are made in the image of God, endowed with a dignity we receive rather than manufacture. Dr. Watkins will help us.
Consider what this vision means for our use of AI, our relationships, our work, and worship, and for the challenge of remaining fully human in an age increasingly shaped by AI. Join us November 16th at 7 p.m. at Colorado Christian University. Register for free at ColsonCenter.org/Colorado. That's ColsonCenter.org/Colorado.
