“According to the Washington Post, taxpayers are now financing, via a $321,000 HHS grant, a pilot program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center-Presbyterian Hospital and Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh to obtain organs from emergency room patients, a practice heretofore ‘considered off-limits in the United States because of ethical and logistical concerns.’ The goal of the project, reports the paper, is to ‘investigate whether it is feasible and, if so, to encourage other hospitals nationwide to follow.’ The article is somewhat obtuse about the longstanding moral problem at the center of organ transplantation, which is that the donors aren’t actually dead.” (03/18/10)