Re Medical Ethics

I just want to respond to Mrs. Herzog's excellent and insightful post about Rivka's questions. I'll repeat her disclaimer about not being a posek, and add that I also don't really get the science, so please correct me if it's appropriate. Two points: First, I think there is one major issue concerning organ donation that needs to be addressed. As many Juniors learn in Gemara class, after a person dies, his vital organs become useless very quickly. Therefore, most transplants of hearts, lungs etc. are taken from patients who are "brain-dead" - there is no more brain activity, and this is assumed to be irreversible. Much of the secular world has accepted brain death as an indicator of death, despite a functioning and beating heart. This is controversial within the world of halacha, and of course the stakes could not be higher. If brain-death is death, then pikuach nefesh would dictate that it is a great mitzvah to donate organs and for doctors to perform these potentially life saving procedures. If it is not, then donating the organs is a form of suicide, and the doctors removing them are murderers. My (limited) understanding is that there are able, responsible poskim on both sides of the issue (I think that the two poskim Mrs. Herzog mentioned at the end of her post, Rabbi Bleich and Rabbi Tendler, are on opposite sides, and vehemently so).

Donating non-essential organs (eyes, a kidney, blood, bone marrow), pose no such problem though they too are discussed in the context of endangering yourself to save another, and are generally less controversial.

The other answer I want to quickly supplement, is about stem-cell research. The Orthodox community is still in the formative stages of responding to this question. And while I think that the prevailing view is positive, as Mrs. Herzog accurately presented, there are some minority voices. I know that Rabbi Meir Soloveichik (Tradition Edition: Vol. 38 No. 1 - Spring 2004 - available by subscription only) wrote against it, making an extra-halachik argument about the value of life and experimentation.