In the movie “7 Pounds”, Ben Thomas suf­fers extreme guilt after killing his wife and six strangers in a car acci­dent caused by his neg­li­gence while texting.

Throughout the movie, Thomas attempts to rec­on­cile for what he did by donat­ing var­i­ous organs to seven wor­thy strangers and ulti­mately makes an ulti­mate and con­tro­ver­sial sac­ri­fice. He takes his own life so that his heart can be donated to a woman with whom he’s fallen in love.

CNN recently reported a story about a man named Gary Phebus was aired. He is a vic­tim of Amyotrophic lat­eral scle­ro­sis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. A ter­mi­nal and pro­gres­sive neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­ease, ALS involves the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of motor neu­rons. This even­tu­ally kills the neu­rons and dis­ables all vol­un­tary mus­cle move­ment, pos­si­bly caus­ing com­plete paral­y­sis. Once it reaches the lungs, the patient will even­tu­ally have to be on a ven­ti­la­tor to survive.

Gary Phebus has a rather unortho­dox wish, some­what rem­i­nis­cent of the Ben Thomas char­ac­ter in “7 pounds.” Phebus wishes to donate his organs while they are still viable, and in this act, he would essen­tially kill himself.

At this point, Phebus is on a breath­ing machine at night, and has extreme dif­fi­culty breath­ing. He also has slurred speech, dou­ble vision, and var­i­ous other debil­i­tat­ing symptoms.

However, unlike Thomas, Phebus has no guilt. He stated, “I’m not sui­ci­dal,” and that he would never take his own life. In Phebus’ case, a doc­tor would per­form the oper­a­tion, unlike Thomas who sub­merged him­self in a tub of ice water with a deadly jel­ly­fish and took his own life.

“I know that there is a mat­ter of time before I die, and I wish to do a good thing for those who have a good life expectancy. To me its only com­mon sense. I can’t take it with me, so why not give it to some­one so that they can watch their loved ones or chil­dren or grand­chil­dren grow up?” said Phebus.

Though it seems like a no-brainer to him, the med­ical world offers many com­pli­ca­tions to this noble wish. First, Phebus’ request would vio­late the dead donor rule. There are two types of “death.” The fist is brain death, when the brain is dam­aged so badly that it can­not func­tion or sup­port any other organs. However, organs can still be recov­ered if the donor is put on a ven­ti­la­tor and then the sup­port is removed once the organs are pro­cured. Vital organs such as the lungs, liver, and heart that Phebus would like to donate could be recov­ered in this case. However, because of Phebus’ con­di­tion and its affect on his lungs and breath­ing, he would most likely suf­fer “car­diac death” which is when res­pi­ra­tory and car­diac func­tion cease. Five min­utes after his dec­la­ra­tion of death, organs could be recov­ered, but in this case, it is very unlikely to recover these vital organs. Especially the high-in-demand lungs that Phebus wishes to donate. For these rea­sons, Phebus wishes to donate before his death while his lungs are healthy and his other organs have a bet­ter chance of being viable and of use.

Though many straight-forward views see this as sui­cide and any med­ical pro­fes­sional per­form­ing such an oper­a­tion would be tak­ing part in assisted sui­cide. Phebus sim­ply wishes to do a good thing, and said him­self that he has a death sen­tence. ALS is an irre­versible disease.

His whole fam­ily is behind him as well. Even if they weren’t, shouldn’t a per­son have the right to his or her own life? Just as if Phebus was on life sup­port and he would have the choice if he wanted to be removed from it, he should have the choice now while his life essen­tially hangs in the bal­ance. Especially since he can still do an incred­i­bly self­less and noble thing for those in des­per­ate need.

Some may worry that chang­ing the liv­ing donor rule would be an excuse for peo­ple suf­fer­ing from depres­sion to take their lives in an attempt at sui­cide. If Phebus’ wish was pos­si­ble though, it would only be for cases such as his: 100 per­cent ter­mi­nally ill patients, prefer­ably with no his­tory of depres­sion prior to diagnosis.

Anyone who watches Phebus’ inter­view can clearly see that this man has no inten­tion of tak­ing his life just to take it for his own per­sonal emo­tional rea­sons. With every­thing in him he wants to help those around him while he still can, and make the most out of his life instead of watch­ing it slip away. In his inter­view, Phebus made a com­par­i­son of his sit­u­a­tion to a soldier.

“It’s like if you’re in a war…you’re sac­ri­fic­ing you’re life to save another…and in my case, I have a death sen­tence. And if all my organs are still viable as I was told, why not save other peo­ples’ lives? Because I don’t know when I’m going to’ go,” said Phebus.

Just like a sol­dier braves the bat­tle­field each day know­ing full well that they could eas­ily die, Phebus has an even more cer­tain death sen­tence. While a sol­dier sac­ri­fices his or her life for oth­ers, Phebus is no dif­fer­ent, except that he is assured death from his dis­ease while a sol­dier still has chance at life. This is even more rea­son for Phebus’ request to be hon­ored and considered.

The argu­ment also exists that Phebus could have a long while to live. Maybe even over five years. But Gary could eas­ily wait until a point in which the ill­ness was soon to affect the organs he wished to donate and then make his sac­ri­fice, giv­ing him more time with fam­ily and loved ones if he desired. Still, he also doesn’t want his fam­ily to suf­fer through his suf­fer­ing. He rather just do some­thing good right away while des­per­ate peo­ple need help fast; a self­less act.

Still, for those with a more post-conventional moral mind­set, med­ical work­ers will­ing to rede­fine and alter the def­i­n­i­tion of death and donor cri­te­ria, and more self­less indi­vid­u­als like Phebus, per­haps we will see that this noble act is one worth con­sid­er­ing alter­ations to the med­ical world and it’s ethics. Perhaps we will over­look the tra­di­tional and find ways to allow those fac­ing death to give oth­ers the gift of life while there is still the chance.

Ferris, being a strong med­ically ori­ented school with our excep­tional phar­macy, optom­e­try, and allied health sci­ence pro­grams, we will cer­tainly be the ones mak­ing these deci­sions some­day. Most likely alter­ing the way the world thinks about med­ical ethics. Maybe, in our hands, some­day Phebus’ wish will come true. n