More on organ donation and "brain death"

In an earlier post on this blog, I mentioned my reservations about donation of vital organs, because of problems with the concept of "brain death." Here is another story of a patient who recovered consciousness after being just minutes away from having his vital organs harvested for donation:

Doctors Who Almost Dissected Living Patient Confess Ignorance about Actual Moment of Death

PARIS, France, June 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Parisian whose organs were about to be removed by doctors after he had "died" of a heart attack, revived on the operating table only minutes before doctors began to harvest his organs.

The 45 year-old man, whose name has been withheld by the French media, was given heart massage by paramedics after collapsing on a street in Paris earlier this year. He was then transferred to a nearby hospital for further emergency procedures, but doctors were not able to restore a consistent heartbeat.

After deciding that they would be unable to dilate the coronary artery (which supplies the heart with blood and is blocked or constricted during a heart attack), the doctors decided to extract the patient's organs for transplant. Transplant doctors were not available at the time, and heart massage was applied for an hour and thirty minutes until the doctors arrived. Le Monde newspaper says that during this period doctors were still unable to revive the heart.

However, when the transplant doctors prepared to operate, they noticed the patient was breathing, his pupils were dilating and he was reacting to pain. He was very clearly alive.

Several weeks later, the patient was walking and talking.

(read more)

Another link worth checking out on this topic is Organ donation: The inconvenient truth by Dr. John Shea. It discusses medical and moral issues (specifically from a Catholic perspective) regarding "brain death" and "cardiac death" criteria.

"New Math"?

I found the following video courtesy of Domenico Bettinelli's blog. Bettinelli says: "If you’re over 30, are not in the educational establishment, and don’t have kids in school, you’re going to be astounded at what passes for math education today." I meet all of those criteria, other than having one child in pre-school, and indeed I was very much astounded. I can only hope that the textbooks mentioned in this video are not in widespread use, but unfortunately I suspect that they are. I will definitely be paying close attention to my kids' math textbooks now that I have seen this.

Put your money where your mouth is

Barack Obama strongly supports giving financial aid to the poor and less fortunate when other people's money is on the line (i.e., through government spending, which of course is financed by taxpayers like you and me). So surely he must set a good example by making generous charitable donations with his own money, right? Apparently not. (Though in charity to Senator Obama, I do hope that there is more to the story.)

This reminds me of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's Tax Me More Fund, where he invited tax-increase advocates to voluntarily contribute some of their own money to the state treasury, in order to set an example of their willingness to pay higher taxes. Not surprisingly, the fund generated very little money. And studies have shown that on average (with many individual exceptions, I'm sure) conservatives tend to give more to charity than liberals do. Arthur Brooks has written an entire book on this subject, called Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism. Here is an excerpt from the book:

The conventional wisdom runs like this: Liberals are charitable because they advocate government redistribution of money in the name of social justice; conservatives are uncharitable because they oppose these policies. But note the sleight of hand: Government spending, according to this logic, is a form of charity.

Let us be clear: Government spending is not charity. It is not a voluntary sacrifice by individuals. No matter how beneficial or humane it might be, no matter how necessary it is for providing public services, it is still the obligatory redistribution of tax revenues. Because government spending is not charity, sanctimonious yard signs do not prove that the bearers are charitable or that their opponents are selfish....

To evaluate accurately the charity difference between liberals and conservatives, we must consider private, voluntary charity. How do liberals and conservatives compare in their private giving and volunteering? Beyond strident slogans and sarcastic political caricatures, what, exactly, do the data tell us?

The data tell us that the conventional wisdom is dead wrong. In most ways, political conservatives are not personally less charitable than political liberals—they are more so.

(read more)

Of course, it should be noted that despite the overall trend, there are certainly many liberals who are very generous with their own money, and some of them may even be politicians. Also, it is certainly possible for a politician to be a hypocrite and still make good policy proposals. But politicians like Senator Obama (and others), who call for increased government spending on social programs, would have a bit more credibility (with me anyway) if they first put their own money where their mouth is. I still might disagree with them, but at least I would be more inclined to listen.

Papal Skateboard Contest

With Pope Benedict set to visit the United States in just a few more weeks, Thomas Peters at the American Papist blog has the details on one of the stranger things associated with this trip: The Archdiocese of New York's Papal Skateboard Art Design Contest.

UPDATE: Catholic blogger "The Curt Jester" has more details, along with a pretty funny picture, here: Official Papal Skateboard and More.

Not Dead Yet

While organ donation is obviously a wonderful thing in its effects (i.e., saving many lives), I've had serious concerns about the circumstances under which vital organs are or may be obtained, ever since I read the following article several years ago:

Not quite dead? The case for caution in the definition of "brain death"

And today my concerns have been reinforced by this story about a young man who is alive and well today after being declared "brain dead" and being minutes away from having his vital organs removed:

Doctor Says about "Brain Dead" Man Saved from Organ Harvesting - "Brain Death is Never Really Death"

OKLAHOMA, March 27, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - 21-year-old Zack Dunlap, a man who was diagnosed as "brain dead" and who was mere minutes away from having his organs harvested, now says, four months after the accident that brought him to the brink of death, that he feels "pretty good." Dunlap's story was told in an NBC piece aired earlier this week, in which the young man himself was interviewed.

While Zack's case is being touted in the media as a "miracle", a neonatologist and expert on brain-death has told LifeSiteNews.com that Zack's case, while remarkable in a sense, is not as rare as the mainstream media's reporting makes it seem.

"The young man was never dead," said Dr. Paul Byrne, a former president of the Catholic Medical Association who began writing about brain death in 1977. What makes Dunlap's case unusual, though not unheard of, says Byrne, is that Zack was lucky enough to be found out to be alive before his vital organs were removed.

"While the story is put out as something that's miraculous," he told LifeSiteNews, "I don't want to take anything away from God, but it's not supernatural what occurred. If there is anything miraculous about it, it is that they didn't get his organs before someone was able to notice some sort of other response. He was always living - his heart was always beating, there was always blood pressure, he was always very much alive."

Dr. Byrne says that over the years he has collected information pertaining to numerous cases where patients labeled brain dead have "returned from the dead." The reason being, says Byrne, is that "brain death is never really death."

Read the rest of the article here.

Coptic Priest Evangelizes Muslims

A priest in the Coptic Church (an ancient branch of Christianity based in Egypt) has apparently been making some waves with his critiques of Islam and his promotion of Christianity:

Islam's 'Public Enemy #1': Coptic priest Zakaria Botros fights fire with fire.

Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East.

Botros is an unusual figure onscreen: robed, with a huge cross around his neck, he sits with both the Koran and the Bible in easy reach. Egypt’s Copts — members of one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East — have in many respects come to personify the demeaning Islamic institution of “dhimmitude” (which demands submissiveness from non-Muslims, in accordance with Koran 9:29). But the fiery Botros does not submit, and minces no words. He has famously made of Islam “ten demands,” whose radical nature he uses to highlight Islam’s own radical demands on non-Muslims.

The result? Mass conversions to Christianity — if clandestine ones. The very public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam — who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday — is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them persuaded by Botros’s public ministry. More recently, al-Jazeera noted Life TV’s “unprecedented evangelical raid” on the Muslim world. Several factors account for the Botros phenomenon.

The article then lists some of the reasons for Fr. Botros's success: his use of the new media (satellite TV and internet), the fact that he broadcasts in Arabic (unlike many refutations of Islam on the internet, which tend to be in English), and that "his polemical technique has proven irrefutable." To expand on that last point, the article continues:

Typically, Botros’s presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open — and humbly invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond and show the error in his methodology. He does demand, however, that their response be based on “al-dalil we al-burhan,” — “evidence and proof,” one of his frequent refrains — not shout-downs or sophistry.

More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence — which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers. The ulema who have publicly addressed Botros’s conclusions often find themselves forced to agree with him — which has led to some amusing (and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV.

The article goes on to mention some of those embarrassing moments. It's a very interesting read, and I pray that Fr. Botros will continue to have great success with spreading the Gospel. (Click here for the whole article.)

Also, the Intentional Disciples blog has a couple of very informative posts on the topic of Muslims who convert to Christianity:

Muslims Who Become Christian and the Price They Pay
Why Do Muslims Convert to Christianity?

Reason #3 why I will not be voting for Barack Obama

Reason #3: When asked if there was any statement or vote that he would like to take back, Senator Obama could have mentioned his opposition to legal protection for babies born alive in a botched abortion (which happens to be my reason #1 for not voting for Senator Obama). Instead, he said that he regrets his very minor role in standing up for Terri Schiavo's right to life.

American Papist and the Christian Post have the details at the following links:

Obama's biggest regret? Not more energetically letting Terri Schiavo die
Obama Under Fire for Terri Schiavo Remark

Some background on Terri Schiavo:

Terri's Story: Timeline
Terri's Story: FAQ

Two recent articles on global warming (or is it global cooling?)

I'm already skeptical of claims about man-made global warming, especially when those claims are of the "doomsday" or "the sky is falling" variety. Here are two recent articles which give some possible reasons for such skepticism:

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age
Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

The Myth of Religious Tolerance

I found this excellent article in Crisis Magazine quite a while back, and I'm just now getting around to linking it here. It explains the difference between religious tolerance and religious liberty or freedom, and gives a very detailed argument for why religious tolerance is not enough. Here is an excerpt:

The Myth of Religious Tolerance

Religion is a good to be embraced and defended—not an evil to be put up with. No one speaks of tolerating chocolate pudding or a spring walk in the park. By speaking of religious “tolerance,” we make religion an unfortunate fact to be borne—like noisy neighbors and crowded buses—not a blessing to be celebrated. . . .

The language of tolerance was first proposed to describe the attitude that confessional states, such as Anglican England and Catholic France, should adopt toward Christians of other persuasions (though no mention was made of tolerance for non-Christian faiths). The assumption was that the state had recognized a certain confession as “true” and put up with other practices and beliefs as a concession to those in error. This led, however, to the employment of tolerance language toward religion. The philosophes would downplay or even ridicule religion in the firm belief that it would soon disappear altogether. Thus, separation of church and state becomes separation of public life and religious belief. Religion was excluded from public conversation and relegated strictly to the intimacy of home and chapel. Religious tolerance is a myth, but a myth imposed by an anti-religious intellectual elite.

This “tolerant” mentality is especially problematic when applied in non-confessional countries—such as the United States—where an attitude of tolerance is not that of the state religion toward unsanctioned creeds, but of a non-confessional secular state toward religion itself. Language of religious toleration of Christianity in Saudi Arabia would be a marked improvement over present conditions, and consistent with a confessional Muslim state’s belief that Christianity is a false religion. In a non-confessional state, such language is more pernicious. . . .

Reason #2 why I will not be voting for Barack Obama

Reason #2: One of the most important jobs of the president is to appoint judges. Yet Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand a judge's proper role.

Again, Terry Jeffrey of Cybercast News makes the case:

Obama's Class-War Court

When the nomination of John Roberts to be chief justice of the Supreme Court came up in the Senate in 2005, Sen. Barack Obama argued that the role of a justice is to favor the "weak" over the "strong." . . .

So, in Obama's vision, who are the "weak" and who are the "strong"? Who deserves to win the "hearts" of Supreme Court justices? Who does not?

In contrast to his soaring campaign rhetoric about bringing America together, Obama's Senate speeches against Roberts and Alito revealed a polarizing vision of America. Minorities, women, employees and criminal defendants were among the weak, majorities, men, employers and prosecutors were among the strong. . . .

Rather than trying to get up-close-and-personal with Roberts, Obama should have listened more carefully to the judge's testimony in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It clearly explained why judges must not consider who is "weak" and who is "strong" in a case, or consult their personal sympathies in making decisions that must be based on the facts and the law.

"Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them," said Roberts. "I will decide every case based on the record, according to the rule of law, without fear or favor, to the best of my ability. And I will remember that it's my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat."

If Obama becomes president, he will try to stack the court not with umpires, but with players who put their heart in every game -- consistently pitching and batting for Obama's favorite teams.

So to continue with the baseball analogy, if Senator Obama were in charge of hiring umpires for a game between the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, would he hire only those umpires who agreed that all close calls should go in favor of the Devil Rays, simply because they have a much smaller payroll than the Yankees? Baseball isn't supposed to work that way. Is this the way our court system should work?

Nevertheless, I can understand how a person could say that court cases are much more important than baseball games, so we should give the benefit of the doubt to the little guy. And I can very much sympathize with that point of view. But the problem I see is this: Who is the little guy? And who gets to decide who is the little guy? Obama might see the little guy as minorities, or the poor, and I don't necessarily have a problem with that. But he clearly doesn't include unborn children in the "little guy" category, while I and others would put them at the top of the list.

So then how about appointing judges who will follow the law and the facts of the case as impartially as they can, rather than trying to tilt the balance toward whoever their particular favored groups happen to be? Wouldn't that be the most fair approach for everyone, since we're not all going to agree on who falls into the "little guy" category?

Is Barack Obama the Messiah?

Clearly the answer is no, but many people seem to be talking about him in messianic terms, as catalogued at this interesting blog.

Reason #1 why I will not be voting for Barack Obama

Reason #1: Senator Obama is radically pro-abortion, so much so that he opposed legislation to protect babies who are born alive during a botched abortion. I'm talking here about babies who have already been born, who are fully outside their mother's womb, who are breathing, crying, and struggling for life -- and who sadly had often been left to die in the absence of legal protection.

Terry Jeffrey at Cybercast News Service presents some details:

Obama Is the Most Pro-Abortion Candidate Ever

He is so pro-abortion that he refused as an Illinois state senator to support legislation to protect babies who survived late-term abortions because he did not want to concede -- as he explained in a cold-blooded speech on the Illinois Senate floor -- that these babies, fully outside their mothers' wombs, with their hearts beating and lungs heaving, were in fact "persons." . . .

State and federal versions of this bill became an issue earlier this decade because of "induced labor abortion." This is usually performed on a baby with Down's Syndrome or another problem discovered on the cusp of viability. A doctor medicates the mother to cause premature labor. Babies surviving labor are left untreated to die.

Jill Stanek, who was a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill., testified in the U.S. Congress in 2000 and 2001 about how "induced labor abortions" were handled at her hospital.

"One night," she said in testimony entered into the Congressional Record, "a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down's Syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have the time to hold him. I couldn't bear the thought of this suffering child lying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived." . . .

Stanek testified about these bills in the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee, where Obama served. She told me this week he was "unfazed" by her story of holding the baby who survived an induced labor abortion.

On the Illinois Senate floor, Obama was the only senator to speak against the baby-protecting bills. He voted "present" on each, effectively the same as a "no." . . .

The article goes on to explain how a similar bill passed the U.S. Senate (which Obama was not yet a member of at that time) by a vote of 98-0. Therefore, one could draw the conclusion that Obama's opposition to the essentially equivalent bill at the state level makes him more radically pro-abortion than just about any other member of the U.S. Senate.

Terry Jeffrey also has a follow-up piece here:

More on Obama and Babies Born Alive

As if we needed further proof of media bias...

Zombietime.com has published this excellent essay on the many fraudulent photos of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict which have recently been published by Reuters and other mainstream media outlets.  (Warning:  The essay contains at least two potentially disturbing photos showing dead bodies.)  Apparently, the number and types of fraudulent photos go far beyond the one digitally-manipulated smoke photo that has received the most publicity.  If you have any doubt whatsoever about the existence of bias in mainstream media outlets such as Reuters, I highly recommend that you read this essay.

Also, zombietime.com is the same website that several months ago ran this excellent pictorial account of the West Coast Walk for Life in San Francisco, which illustrates the stark difference in attitudes and tactics between the pro-life and pro-abortion demonstrators.  (Warning:  A few of the pictures contain mildly disturbing images and/or explicit language.)

"Imposing Our Beliefs"

I recently found this excellent article by Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk.  For those who aren't familiar with his name, Fr. Pacholczyk (or Fr. Tad, as he is often called by people -- like me -- who have trouble pronouncing his last name) is a Catholic priest with a doctorate in neuroscience, and he is the director of education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center.  He is also an expert on the moral and ethical issues involved in embryonic stem cell research.  In the article I linked, Fr. Tad gives a great rebuttal to the common argument that we should not legislate against embryonic stem cell research (or abortion, or euthanasia, etc.), because to do so would be to "impose our beliefs" on others.  Here is part of Fr. Tad's response:

Recently I was asked to speak in Virginia at legislative hearings about embryonic stem cell research. After I gave my testimony, one of the senators asked a pointed question. "Father Tad, by arguing against embryonic stem cell research, don't you see how you are trying to impose your beliefs on others, and shouldn't we as elected lawmakers avoid imposing a narrow religious view on the rest of society?" The senator's question was an example of the fuzzy thinking that has become commonplace in recent years within many state legislatures and among many lawmakers.

Two major errors were incorporated into the senator's question. First, the senator failed to recognize the fact that law is fundamentally about imposing somebody's views on somebody else. Imposition is the name of the game. It is the very nature of law to impose particular views on people who don't want to have those views imposed on them. Car thieves don't want laws imposed on them which prohibit stealing. Drug dealers don't want laws imposed on them which make it illegal to sell drugs. Yet our lawmakers are elected precisely to craft and impose such laws all the time. So the question is not whether we will impose something on somebody. The question is instead whether whatever is going to be imposed by the force of law is reasonable, just, and good for society and its members.

The second logical mistake the senator made was to suppose that because religion happens to hold a particular viewpoint, that implies that such a viewpoint should never be considered by lawmakers or enacted into law....

Click here to read the rest of the article.

The Media on Religion

Terry Mattingly wrote an interesting column recently about the way that mainstream media reporters, even religion reporters, often simply don't understand religion, which leads them to report inaccurately on religious topics. Here's an excerpt:

Picture this scene. A flock of Pentecostal Christians has gathered at the U.S. Capitol for yet another prayer rally about sex, abortion, family values and the public square.

"At times, the mood turned hostile toward the lawmakers in the stately white building behind the stage," wrote The Washington Post in its coverage of the event. Then, without explanation, the story offered this on-stage quotation from a religious broadcaster: "Let's pray that God will slay everyone in the Capitol."

Slay what? Clearly, the reporters didn't know about the experience that Pentecostal Christians call being "slain in the Holy Spirit," in which they believe they are transformed by a surge of God's power. The result was a journalistic train wreck that ended up in the book The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect.

"The problem," wrote authors Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, "was that the reporters didn't know, didn't have any Pentecostals in the newsroom to ask, and was perhaps too anxious for a 'holy s---' story to double-check with someone afterward whether the broadcaster was really advocating the murder of the entire Congress." This mistake made "a strong case for the need for humility" at the news desk, they said.

Let me say "amen" to that, speaking as a journalism professor and as a religion-beat veteran who has winced in recent decades when reading these kinds of corrections (including a few of my own).

Truth is, far too many journalists veer into mental ditches when asked to cover events and trends rooted in religion. That's bad news when it comes time for serious, accurate coverage of a variety of stories that ordinary readers care about — from trends in Hollywood to debates about free speech in schools, from "sectarian" bloodbaths in Iraq to hard data linking what happens in pews to what happens in ballot boxes.

Click here for the full article: The Media, God, and Gaffes

I think that the problem identified in this article is actually symptomatic of a larger problem with the mainstream media, which is that they often don't seem to be all that knowledgeable about any advanced topic, whether it is religion, science, law, or whatever. I notice this myself, any time that the media reports on a topic that I happen to know a lot about. I find that it is not uncommon at all for the media simply to get facts wrong, and to perpetuate a distorted view of certain topics. And I don't think that this always or even usually means that they are biased, but rather that when it comes to many advanced topics, they sometimes just don't adequately understand what they are talking about. But maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist -- I'd be interested to know if people besides me have noticed this same phenomenon.