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Michelle Oberman, JD, MPH
Loyola University School of Law Chicago, Ill

JAMA. 1989;262(15):2093-2094.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Shewmon et al¹ help focus the debate on the medical, ethical, and legal factors at stake in using anencephalic infants as organ sources. They discuss the difficulty of diagnosing anencephaly, and correctly suggest that if such infants are considered to be alive, their organs cannot be harvested. This dilemma warrants an inquiry into whether a diagnosis of anencephaly can be strictly limited to infants born without brains and whether one lacking a brain is "brain dead." However, their argument against using these infants as donors is not based on diagnostic ambiguity, but rather on a laundry list of nonmedical problems that they fear may result should donations be sanctioned.

For the most part, their arguments against using these infants as donors are variations of the "slippery slope" doctrine. For example, they assert that the small number of usable organs may result in the intentional production of . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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