The following comes from a June 11 story in BioEdge, “bioethics news from around the world.”
Since 2005 about 40 people in Belgium and the Netherlands have successfully combined euthanasia with organ donation, according to an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics by ethicists and transplant specialists. The doctors are so enthusiastic about the procedure that they have proposed legal changes which will speed up the procedure and maximize the number of donations. Although the numbers are still low, the idea is becoming more popular in both countries, according to the authors.
(Not everyone – in fact, only a small proportion – of people who request euthanasia are potential organ donors. Most requests come from patients with cancer, which makes them unsuitable donors. Most of the Belgians who have already participated in the programme appear to have suffered from strokes or multiple sclerosis.)
However there are some legal and ethical wrinkles to be ironed out to make the transition from euthanasia to organ donation seamless.
Some regulations and laws are supposed to be safeguards, but they slow the procedure down. For example, in the Netherlands, euthanasia is not regarded as a natural death and so permission must be sought from the public prosecutor to dispose of the body. In Belgium (where euthanasia is regarded as “natural”), three doctors need to sign off on the procedure. These laws are not absolutely necessary.
On the ethical side (assuming that euthanasia is perfectly ethical), relatives are supposed to be able to participate in the patient’s death. But if he or she wished to donate organs, they will have to bid farewell in a cold hospital setting. However, experience in Belgium shows that neither relatives nor patients mind this.
Another consideration is whether informing euthanasia patients about organ donation puts pressure on them to agree. The authors believe that it doesn’t, provided that it is done tactfully. According to the principles of the Hippocratic Oath, doctors may even have an obligation to inform patients because they will be saving lives of organ recipients. They also point out that “The patient could be very relieved discovering the existence of this option and receiving the possibility to give meaning to his or her own suffering, by potentially relieving the suffering of others.”
Until now, transplant protocols have specified a strict separation between organ donation and euthanasia. However, if the patient is keen, this is not necessary. “As long as all due diligence requirements are fulfilled, it should not be an obstacle if euthanasia and donation are not fully separated,” the authors argue.
Finally, the dead donor rule is frustratingly inconvenient for organ donor euthanasia. Since the patient has chosen to die anyway, why shouldn’t it be possible, to have “a ‘heart-beating organ donation euthanasia’ where a patient is sedated, after which his organs are being removed, causing death”?
Well, you can all see the slippery slope here. It will not take a society that defines itself with permitting the slaughter of the pre-born much time at all to justify harvesting organs from “less desirables” that are still alive. Put another way, why not “select” people that have good organs, but who are not living “quality lives,” to be put to sleep and their stuff harvested “for the public good?” Maybe that PP doctor will get her Maserati after all.
I left my heart in San Francisco – literally.