Canada: Doctors Propose Harvesting Organs from Euthanasia Victims

A paper published by the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that Canada should take advantage of the bumper crop of corpses produced by its euthanasia policies and begin harvesting them for organs. The organs would be taken from the euthanasia volunteers while they are sedated, but still alive. Canada’s National Post reported on Thursday that the paper has caused a stir in the Canadian bioethics community because the organ-harvesting proposal might turn a horrified public away from Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), the Canadian euthanasia program. But the proposal also follows the logic of euthanasia to its ultimate conclusion, which is if people want to die, and they have healthy organs, why not pass those organs along to people who do not want to die? The paper suggested sedating the patients and removing their organs before death is initiated, to ensure maximum freshness and quality of the organs. This notion runs afoul of Canada’s “dead donor rule” (DDR), a legal requirement …