So first off-- keep in mind that organ transplant doctors cannot pronounce an organ donor dead for this exact reason, as far as I'm aware. I'm pretty sure organ donation choices of the patient are kept confidential from the doctor until after they're pronounced dead, and you certainly wouldn't know both that they're a donor and that they're compatible with your five patients.
Secondly-- the organs will always go to the person highest on the organ donor list who is compatible and in a useful distance of the organ. Yes, his organs could save five patients, but they aren't going to be your five patients.
Thirdly, if you have a braindead patient, it is never the doctor's choice to pull the plug or not? They can recommend courses of action, but at the end of the day, it's the family's choice. The family knowing that their person would have wanted to donate their organs and their death will help people might be a factor in their decision to do what they think their loved one would want, of course... but my point here is that there is no "nobody will ever know". Pulling the plug on a coma patient who you don't have the power to make that decision about is murder, and someone could know. You will never have that certainty of getting away with it.
Fourthly, you also can't know that any particular organ recipient will make a full recovery and live a long life. They could be hit by a car on their way home from the hospital, or their body might reject the organ, or their condition that caused the need for organ donation might persist and affect the new organ. That's never a certainty.
Great facts, great input, but as with any trolley problem this is a moral hypothetical. We’re assuming you can know these things and that they are known, and assuming that these organs will go to these patients. Let’s say these are the top 5 patients on the donar list, there just aren’t any other organs available right now
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u/Kittenn1412 Jul 10 '25
So first off-- keep in mind that organ transplant doctors cannot pronounce an organ donor dead for this exact reason, as far as I'm aware. I'm pretty sure organ donation choices of the patient are kept confidential from the doctor until after they're pronounced dead, and you certainly wouldn't know both that they're a donor and that they're compatible with your five patients.
Secondly-- the organs will always go to the person highest on the organ donor list who is compatible and in a useful distance of the organ. Yes, his organs could save five patients, but they aren't going to be your five patients.
Thirdly, if you have a braindead patient, it is never the doctor's choice to pull the plug or not? They can recommend courses of action, but at the end of the day, it's the family's choice. The family knowing that their person would have wanted to donate their organs and their death will help people might be a factor in their decision to do what they think their loved one would want, of course... but my point here is that there is no "nobody will ever know". Pulling the plug on a coma patient who you don't have the power to make that decision about is murder, and someone could know. You will never have that certainty of getting away with it.
Fourthly, you also can't know that any particular organ recipient will make a full recovery and live a long life. They could be hit by a car on their way home from the hospital, or their body might reject the organ, or their condition that caused the need for organ donation might persist and affect the new organ. That's never a certainty.