Non-American here, mightily confused. The Georgia bill states that life begin when a heart beat can be detected, correct? How will this affect the treatment of people declared brain-dead? I would assume that turning off life support for them would be the same as turning off life support for a fetus, but has this been covered in the bill or any medical establishments?
Can you ethically harvest organs from a braindead person in Georgia, when they are technically still considered alive?
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Does it also mean without a detected heart beat is not considered life?
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Brain death is the equivalent of cardiac death in any medical situation. So sayeth the ethics committees at large.
It’s simple, really: the bill does not amend state law with respect to stopping treatment or with respect to organ donation.
> I would assume that turning off life support for them would be the same as turning off life support for a fetus, but has this been covered in the bill or any medical establishments?
With a few exceptions, the bill does not allow a doctor to perform an abortion after a heartbeat is detected. An abortion intentionally kills the child, that’s different from stopping further treatment with the expectation that a patient will probably die. Euthanasia is also not legal in Georgia.
> Can you ethically harvest organs from a braindead person in Georgia, when they are technically still considered alive?
Geogia implements the Uniform Determination of Death Act, which defines death as “either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem”. So being brain-dead is being legally dead.
Although the bill cites the UDDA as part of its reasoning, it’s not exactly relevant because a developing child hasn’t suffered an “irreversible cessation” of any functions if those functions have not fully begun yet. Otherwise we would be forced to say say the child goes from dead to living, which of course is not how it works.
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