One example comes to mind.

When I was a grad student in moral theology in the early 80’s, there was just beginning to be a debate about “neo-morts.” The idea was that we could keep the internal organs of recently brain dead individuals alive through mechanical means (heart/lung machine, nasal tube for feeding, etc.). In effect, we would use the recently dead as an organ and tissue farm. What’s the harm you might ask since the person was dead?

The harm, in addition to the assault on human dignity, was creating an economic and therapeutic incentive to declare people brain dead in order to harvest body parts. Unthinkable? To those who understand the dignity of the human person. But to those driven by utilitarian calculations–the greatest good for the greatest number at the lowest cost–this is not only imaginable, but desirable.

Seen today, the neo-mort plan seems crude. But in therapeutic cloning, stem cell harvesting, etc., I see attempts to fulfill the objectives of those who argued for neo-mort organ harvesting. What makes the new plan truly horrifying is that, unlike the neo-mort scheme, these new attempts are tidy and clinical, the work of scientists in laboratories not nurses in hospital wings.

Let there be no mistake, in both cases human dignity, to say nothing of the moral law, suffers a great assault.

Again, thanks for the sobering post.

In Christ,

+FrG