Speech: Using Anencephalic Newborns as Potential Organ Donors

Topic: Using Anencephalic Newborns as Potential Donors

Audience: University Students: Health Science Graduates and Faculty

Good evening my fellow colleagues, and welcome to our on-campus organ donation seminar. My name is Star Safari, and I am honored and humbled that my colleagues have asked me to be your speaker for this evening. Before I jump in to our evening’s discussion, I would like to tell you a bit about myself. I am a student here at CSUN and I have been studying Public Health with an emphasis on Environmental and Occupational Health along with Nursing.

I have a burning passion for preserving the life of children and helping them grow up as healthy individuals; therefore today I will be talking about organ donation from anencephalic infants to otherwise overall healthy children in need and why the definition of death for anencephalic infants should be an exception to preserve the life of another child. First and foremost, anencephaly is a serious neural tube birth defect that is characterized by the absence of the forebrain, skull and scalp. This includes lack of brain development above the level of the brain stem. However, there is still brain stem activity, which enables the heart and the lungs to function for a short time; developing less and less regular breathing and eventually causing the infant to die from respitory failure. There is an estimate of 2,000-3,000 anencephalic infants is born each year and unfortunately, the majority of these anencephalic infants die within days or weeks without life support.

I believe that one of the greatest miracles of modern medicine is the capability of successfully transplanting human organs, such as kidneys and hearts into other humans who would die without it.

There has been and continues to be a growing need, and increasing shortage of transplant organs. Under present definitions and laws, organs cannot be taken from a person who does not meet the currently accepted “whole brain” definition of death, which requires “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem. The anencephalic does not meet this definition; it is not brain-dead, even though the brain is incomplete with the absence of most of the cerebral cortex.

According to medical studies, keeping the infant on life support for the family disrupts the complete function of the organs; therefore tampering with the quality of the anencephalic organs and causing irreversible damage by depriving them of consistent oxygen and blood flow. When the infant passes, the organs are no longer usable and or feasible for donation and transplantation.

Allow me to make this clearer for you. Her name was Claire. She was the youngest daughter of two. Her kidneys stopped functioning 9 months into her life. Three times a week she spent half a day on dialysis and the rest of the day recovering from the procedure. She rarely had energy left inside her small body and was constantly exhausted. When she became a candidate for a kidney, her parents, and her whole family were ecstatic. Unfortunately, she died before an organ became available.

I should not be standing here today, telling you about Claire’s death.

A shortage of organs and loss of anencephalic organs has created legal and ethical debate regarding the policy issues behind both determination of death and organ transplantation. One side of the debate indicates that the law should declare these infants similar to brain dead so that their organs may be taken and used while the organs are still viable. The other side of the debate reiterates that anencephalic newborns have full rights under the law, including the right to bodily integrity and the right to die naturally. 

Now you tell me, who is taking the unethical route to not use these organs to save another life? A life that, unlike the anencephalic, has potential to live many years.

I encourage you all to think about this carefully.

Organ donation is an incredible gift. It can save the life of the one who receives it, and strangely helps the family of the one who died. It could be your child, your best friend’s, a family member’s, and or a colleague’s child, who needs a kidney or any other organ.

I understand that taking one’s life to preserve another is unethical. And it is. But this is not the case with anencephalic infants. Unfortunately, anencephalic infants cannot live with the limitations they are born with; but imagine a child riding a bike for the first time, learning how to read, their first day of school, graduating from college, and living up to their potentials. His or her organ donor made that possible. By donating anencephalic organs, one will be giving the gift of life and making their infant’s death a meaningful one.

In closing, I would like to announce that I have provided literature, documents, and studies regarding what I discussed this evening. Along with the literature in the back of the room, you will also find a petition to make an exception to change the definition of death for anencephalic infants to save another child. This will be sent to our congressmen, eventually leading to the United States Supreme Court.

Let’s save a life.

Thank you for your time.

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Bill Rosendahl incorporates pathos in his speech by envoking emotional strategies in his speech by incorporating using facial expressions of astonishment and disbelief as to why legalization of marijuana is still an ongoing issue and concern.

Bill Rosendahl also incorporates logos by providing statistical information.

The Right to Use Anencephalic Newborns as Organ Donors to Save Infants in Need

Editorial:

Shouldn't Parents Have The Right to Donate Their Dying Child's Organs?

The Right to Use Anencephalic Newborns as Organ Donors to Save Infants in Need

ABC News 

March 9, 2013

Anencephaly is a serious neural tube birth defect that is characterized by the absence of the forebrain, skull and scalp. This includes lack of brain development above the level of the brain stem. However, there is still brain stem activity, which enables the heart and the lungs to function for a short time; developing less and less regular breathing and eventually causing the infant to die from respitory failure. An estimate of 2,000-3,000 anencephalic infants is born each year. The majority of anencephalic infants die within days or weeks without life support.

There is a growing need and increasing shortage of transplant organs for infants and whether parents should have the right to donate the organs of their anencephalic infants before physicians announce and declare the child legally brain dead. Although it is possible to keep the infant on life support machines for some time, maintenance of the vital organs is unsafe and dangerous.  Because of the lack of higher brain coordination, the newborn constantly forgets to breathe. These interruptions and lack of coordination in respiration causes irreversible damage to the organs by depriving them of consistent oxygen and blood flow. By the time the infant is legally brain dead, the organs are no longer usable and or feasible for donation and transplantation. Regularly parents choose to volunteer their infant’s organs for transplants to acquire some positivity out of a negative situation; but because the use of anencephalic newborns as organ donors before they are announced and declared brain dead is illegal in the United States, these newborns must wait to die naturally, with their organs becoming nonviable for transplant purposes.

Because it is extremely difficult to find donors and transplants for infants and young children, the loss of these organs has created a legal and ethical debate regarding the policy issues behind both determination of death and organ transplantation. One side of the debate indicates that the law should declare these infants similar to brain dead so that their organs may be taken and used while the organs are still viable. The other side of the debate reiterates that anencephalic newborns have full rights under the law, including the right to bodily integrity and the right to die naturally.  It would seem to be that the unethical route to take is to not use these organs to save another life, a life that, unlike the anencephalic, has potential to live many years to come.

Some state legislators have proposed defining anencephalic newborns as "dead" as a limited exception to the legal definition of brain death. Despite the uneasiness of labeling a breathing newborn dead, one can see the development to this line of reasoning through the history of the definition of "death." According to common law, “courts define death as the irreversible cessation of all vital functions, specifically circulation and respiration”. This definition became known as the heart-lung definition of death. 

State Legislative Action to Prevent Childhood Obesity

Research project determines the factors associated with state legislative action to address childhood obesity

Northridge, California – March. 5, 2012

The prevalence of obesity among youth and junior youth has grown substantially in the last 30 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also known as the CDC identify childhood obesity as a BMI above the 95^th percentile for children of the same age and gender.

The rate of obesity has quadrupled among young children from the ages of 6-11 and has doubled among the teens and youth from the ages 12-19. The growth of the youth and childhood obesity epidemic is problematic because it affects physical, and mental health along with financial and medical care costs. When children and young adults are obese and overweight at a young age, they are more likely to become and or remain obese adults, which creates more medical and financial burdens.

Public health, medical institutions and organizations are responding to this epidemic by producing and suggesting policy strategies that target obesity among youth and children. In response to the growing obesity epidemic and the encouragement and concern of public health officials; state legislatures have produced and provided bills and laws regarding some anti-obesity policies. Some of these policies include, revising physical education requirements and improving and modifying school nutrition standards. These legislative actions are vital and important for the prevention and eradication of childhood obesity.

The Institute of Medicine reports urge and encourage additional state legislative action to prevent youth and childhood obesity. An indication of the importance assigned to the states’ role in preventing childhood obesity is that the research group grades each state annually on the basis of its legislative action in addressing and targeting childhood obesity.

Research that was conducted reported that 6 states received As, 21 received Bs, 14 got Cs, 6 received Ds and 3 states got failing grades for taking no action at all. The research project conducted is hoping to help predict future policy action on obesity. The results of this study can be used to guide the efforts of public health advocates, who could achieve and promote success by targeting their efforts to take advantage of state political strategies that are beneficial to policy action on obesity.

This research provides evidence, and finds several demographic, socioeconomic, and political characteristics of states that help predict legislative action on obesity. As a result, it provides anti-obesity advocates with evidence about which states might be the most responsive to new policies in addressing the epidemic of youth and childhood obesity.

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Contact: Star Safari
Phone: --------------
Fax: ------------
Email: star.safari.428@csun.edu

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