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Ugh. "Springfield man with autism donates kidney to brother"

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Edenthiel
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13 Dec 2015, 7:00 pm

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That Derek, 31, was willing to donate one of his kidneys to his only sibling, who was born with a physical disorder that left him with only one functioning kidney, is not uncommon from one outlook. A full sibling, after all, provides the best chance for a compatible donor match.

Derek, however, is autistic.

He was diagnosed with the neurodevelopmental disorder, characterized by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors, when he was 2. Asked if it is unusual for someone with autism to donate a kidney or any other organ, Dr. William Bennett says: “Yes, and that was what worried us the most.” Bennett is a nephrologist and medical director at Legacy Transplant Services, a department of Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center in Portland, where Jeff Hadley’s transplant surgery took place Oct. 26.

“Is this person capable of giving us informed consent?” Bennett says he and the rest of the transplant team asked themselves. “So, we went to great lengths to make sure this was his free will, and that he understood what he was doing. And he did.”


Gee, ya' think? :roll:

(from: http://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/ ... o-brother#)


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BuyerBeware
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14 Dec 2015, 10:08 am

The wording of the article certainly leaves something to be desired. Like, everything.

Yes, I do resent the implication that "autistic" necessarily means "too mentally disabled to understand."

However, I do acknowledge that autism and intellectual disability sometimes run together. "Sometimes" being often enough to form the association in the minds of the ignorant (and we're all ignorant of things we don't deal with frequently enough to be knowledgeable about).

I can't complain too much about the docs' stated behavior.

1) By and large, autistic people ARE more easily manipulated. I know that simple acceptance is both a carrot AND a stick that people can and do use to drive me to do things I'm unwilling to do and/or know are wrong. Been that way all my life-- and I'm not severe enough to have qualified for a diagnosis in 1987. Is it really wrong to want to be sure no one was twisting his arm??

2) MY family is OK, but I'm sure there are families out there who would see "spare parts for the sibling with the 'good brain'" as the best possible use an autistic sibling could be put to. So, I'm sort of GLAD they wanted to be sure this was a self-willed and volitional act from a capable mind, not something that had been foisted upon someone who didn't quite get it.

At least they didn't trot out the whole "lacking empathy for others" saw.


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YippySkippy
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14 Dec 2015, 10:16 am

To be diagnosed autistic at age two in the 1980s was a rare thing. His symptoms must have been pretty severe at the time.