The New York Times has once again wandered into ethically radioactive territory — this time publishing an op-ed arguing that America should redefine death itself to boost organ supply.
Dr. Sandeep Jauhar and his co-authors argue that the solution to the nation’s organ shortage is simple: expand the legal definition of brain death to include “irreversibly comatose patients on life support.” Under this redefinition, patients whose hearts are still beating — but whose higher brain functions are permanently impaired — would be legally classified as dead, freeing doctors to begin organ retrieval.
If that sounds unsettling, it should. Especially coming just two weeks after the Times itself published a devastating investigation exposing how a push for more organs has already led to “rushed or premature attempts” to harvest them — including cases in which patients were still “gasping, crying, or showing other signs of life.”
People on Twitter have been talking about premature organ harvesting for years.
I’ll be honest, I thought it was a conspiracy theory.
I was wrong. It’s real, and it’s horrific. pic.twitter.com/Lq7NoHoBpO
— Robert Sterling (@RobertMSterling) July 20, 2025
The Department of Health and Human Services didn’t mince words. “Our findings show that hospitals allowed the organ procurement process to begin when patients showed signs of life, and this is horrifying,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy.
Yet Jauhar — who has written approvingly of doctors lying to patients, performing procedures without consent, and even participating in executions — frames his proposal as a kind of enlightened pragmatism. After all, he argues, “brain death is rare.” Why not broaden the definition? Why not make organ donation opt-out by default?
Because the stakes aren’t theoretical. They’re human. The Times’ own reporting details how these “circulatory death donations” — the very practice Jauhar champions — have already resulted in botched, premature organ retrievals. Neurologist Dr. Wade Smith told the Times, “These types of problems are happening much more than we know.”
I have had to counsel some ♀ with heart failure to end their pregnancies. It was incredibly sad and hard, but they would have died w/o abortions.
Hard to believe drs and pts will now have to make such wrenching decisions under the threat of prison.
— Sandeep Jauhar (@sjauhar) June 27, 2022
But Jauhar seems unfazed. He briefly acknowledges such cases, calling them “catastrophes,” but waves them away as rare exceptions. The real catastrophe, in his telling, is a shortage of organs — and the answer is to declare more living patients legally dead.
Jauhar’s worldview is laid bare in one line: “Once those higher brain functions are irreversibly gone, is it not fair to say that a person (as opposed to a body) has ceased to exist?” To him, personhood ends when consciousness does.
It’s a chilling philosophy, made all the more so when dressed up as progress. And it leaves a grim question hanging in the air: If doctors are now free to redefine when life ends, who exactly is left to protect the living?
