"An ignoble form of cannibalism": reflections on the Pittsburgh protocol for procuring organs from non-heart-beating cadavers

Abstract

The author discusses the ways in which she finds the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center protocol for procuring organs from "non-heart-beating cadaver donors" medically and morally questionable and irreverent. She also identifies some of the factors that contributed to the composition of this troubling protocol, and to its institutional approval.