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While the federal government is encouraging “donation after cardiac death,” to make more organs available and give more families the option to donate, the question is that is it ethical? Donation after cardiac death is a procedure whereby the organ is removed when the the brain shows little function, but not completely brain dead.

Even though this procedure involves total loss of heart function and is irreversible, in some cases, the organ donor may not be fully brain dead, the other equation in determining when to remove the organs. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, in 2007, there were 793 cardiac-death donors, about 10 percent of all deceased donors. The New England Journal of Medicine put out a report regarding the ethics of cardiac-death donors, especially for infant heart transplants.

Jill Airington-Grooms, the parent of a child who had been born with little brain function and wouldn’t survive, said of their decision to donate her child’s organs, “as difficult as that was to hear, this opportunity provided us with a ray of hope.”

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