BY: ELIZABETH WONG

Being "pro-life" at Franciscan University of Steubenville generally means one thing: fighting abortion. Granted, this is a crucial aspect of the pro-life movement, but many times other important life issues are forgotten in the process.

One life issue rarely discussed at Franciscan, or even within most Catholic circles, is that of brain death and organ donation. This is a sticky topic, since most young people are registered organ donors on their driver's licenses and may even know someone whose life was changed through organ donation.

Very few people are educated about the actual process of an organ transplant and its relation to brain death. An example of the complications surrounding brain death and organ donation is that of 21-year-old Zachary Dunlap, who suffered severe head trauma in an all-terrain vehicle accident in 2008. He was declared legally brain dead and preparations were made to harvest his organs, since he was a registered donor. On a hunch, a nurse, who happened to be Dunlap's cousin, pulled out a pocket knife and ran the blade across Dunlap's foot, causing the foot to jerk away. Though another nurse said that it was just a reflex, a similar startled reaction occurred when the cousin dug a fingernail under Dunlap's nail.

Dunlap later recovered and spoke with NBC in the following months about his experience. He had heard the doctors declare him dead, and had been outraged, explaining in his interview that he was glad that he "couldn't get up and do what I wanted to do... (it) probably would have been a broken window they went out."

Dunlap is a story of lucky survival, but his scenario is not unique. Numerous other victims of head injury have been declared brain dead after a brain scan indicated no brain activity, and their organs have been harvested as part of the procedure. This is seen as a generous gesture — giving up one's organs for the sake of another's to give life.

However, research has indicated that brain death, which was introduced as a theory in 1968 by a committee of the Harvard Medical School, is not equal to actual death. In fact, typical organ donors are very much alive.

"Every organ that's transplanted is from a living person," said Dr. Paul Byrne, member of the Life Guardian Foundation and founder of the website, TruthAboutOrganDonation.com.

Byrne, who has done extensive research on the topic of brain death since 1977, said that organ donation is only a scientific theory, and that it was never based on true science. Even when it seems as though death is near, he explained that "we ought not impose death on one another", even if for the sake if saving someone else's life.

Arguing that there is only one actual death --" true death", which involves complete cessation of all, not some, vital organs -- he stated that "before they're (truly) dead, they're living persons."

In his column "Why are Pastoral Care Workers Ignorant of the Realities of 'Brain Death'" at RenewAmerica.com, Byrne explained various characteristics of a brain dead person. This included the presence of a beating heart, the patient being warm and even healing or going through changes, such as a child through puberty, or a pregnant woman fully to term.

"Organs can be transplanted only when healthy and must be removed while there is respiration, circulation and a beating heart," Byrne confirmed in the column. He added that organ donors usually need a powerful anesthesia or paralyzing drugs to keep them from moving around during the procedure, and that the patient's "time of death" is officially registered after the removal of all vital organs.

With these realities, it is clear that organ donation has a dark side to its seemingly generous and self-sacrificial appearance. Just as it is never ethical for a woman to abort her child to save her own life, it is never ethical for one person to die so that their organs can be given to another person.

"The basic teaching of the Catholic Church is that the human being is special, and we don't kill each other," said Byrne. "While that's a teaching of the Church, it's also a part of natural law. In our hearts we know to love each other, and we love each other in such a way that we don't kill each other."