Organ Harvesting of Assisted Suicide Victims

Today, in the Netherlands and Belgium, medically assisted euthanasia is legal, and anyone opting for assisted suicide may be contacted by an organ procurement organization. The same is happening in Canada, and some groups want to bring it to the United States. When medically assisted suicide becomes legal, it seems inevitable that it will lead to organ harvesting of assisted suicide victims.

Assisted suicide advocates suggest that if someone wants to die, their organs could be used to help others. Since they are going to die anyway, why not use their parts? When a country or state allows medically assisted suicide, it’s likely that organ harvesters will follow. When lethal injections are legalized, what stops someone from exploiting the mentally ill or disturbed, especially if there are benefits involved? What prevents abuse of the poor or vulnerable? “We will pay for medical technicians to end your life if you agree to sign your organs over to us. You won’t need them, and you won’t have any final expenses.”

So far, the trend of linking assisted suicide to organ harvesting has not gained wide acceptance in the United States, but it’s not certain that it won’t. Bioethics scholar Thaddeus Mason Pope has advocated for organ procurement organizations (OPOs) to be more aggressive in obtaining organs from patients seeking medical assistance in dying (MAiD). The thought is that people who are seeking MAiD but are not terminally ill might have better organs. Instead of letting people commit suicide on their own, do it in a hospital where the organs could be harvested immediately.

The Christian belief is that every life is sacred, and we do everything possible to save lives. When society begins to treat some human lives as worthless and human bodies as commodities to be traded, where does it end? Organ harvesting from assisted suicide victims is adding grease to a slippery slope with no bottom. The consequences are disastrous for a civilized society. Do we want to live in that kind of world?

Reference: medicalfutility.blogspot.com