Legacy MattersWhen a doctor hastens a death in order to harvest the organs, he faces criminal charges.
Dr. Hootan Roozrokh is the Surgeon Accused of Speeding a Death to Get Organs.
He faces 8 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
Much as I am in favor of organ donations willingly made, I am inalterably opposed to hastening any death to harvest organs. In law school, it's called a "bright line" - one step over the line and that's it. I don't care how sympathetic a case can be made for the doctor. He went over the line and should be punished. Let his experience of being charged and maybe his conviction stand as a warning to other doctors.
His lawyer argues that the doctor did nothing to adversely affect the quality or length of his patient's life.
We can not know that because we do not know what is in the mind of a dying person.
"Adversely affecting the quality or length" of life is such a slippery standard. Who is to say what the 'quality of life' is? Yet everyone can understand what 'hastening death' is.
What the doctor did is see his patient as an object not a subject, a life to be shortened for his convenience. By so doing, he denied his patient the dignity we owe every person. We don't have to kill people to get their organs.
His mother got it right.
“He didn’t deserve to be like that, to go that way,” she said. “He died without dignity and sympathy and without respect.”