(By Dr. Heidi Klessing / LifeSiteNews) — Imagine an intensive care unit full of people. Monitors glow with electrocardiogram tracings, blood pressure measurements, and oxygenation readings.
Ventilators whir as air is pumped in and out of lungs and feeding tubes drip nutrients. But these people are not getting better. They are “neomorts:” people with severe neurological injuries whose families have consented to allowing doctors to use their living bodies for experimentation.
In a recent podcast, bioethicist Arthur Caplan proudly proclaimed that he has pioneered using critically disabled people for research at NYU Langone Health in wards that he calls “bioemporia.” Dr. Caplan says that he discovered the idea of neomorts and bioemporia in an essay written by Dr. Willard Gaylin, a psychiatrist, for Harper’s Magazine in 1974 called “Harvesting the Dead.” CONTINUE