Medical Ethics

Don't be alarmed by the specific organ that was transplanted in this story. My question/comment has to do with the donor and the fact that they are in China.

I have a difficult time respecting the determination that this transplant was done ethically. First, because they say the organ was donated by a "brain dead" person. What does that mean? Was this person dead with the exception of them being on a heart/lung machine? Was he "brain dead" the same way Terry Schiavo was in a "vegitative state"? Second, was the "donor" mutilated and left alive without the donated organ? was the person killed to harvest the organ?

I fear that this is a case of eugenic donation. I define that as the harvesting of body parts from non productive "donors" so that the body parts can be given to and used by "productive people" for the "betterment of society as a whole". How much longer until people start holding off on having abortions until the third trimester so that they can sell the "biological substances" contained in their wombs for medical research and procedures such as organ "donation"?

Pyro