American man receives organ harvested from Canadian man killed by MAiD

Organs were harvested from an Ontario man who was killed by Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), and one of those organs was successfully transplanted into an American man, further cementing concerns over the intermingling of MAiD with organ donation around the globe.

Key Takeaways:

• Assisted suicide was legalized in Canada in 2016, and within just two years, there were calls to intermingle euthanasia and organ donation.

• Earlier this year, a bill was introduced in Ontario which would change organ donation to "presumed consent."

• An American man with heart failure has now received a heart from a man who had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, who chose to end his life through the MAiD program.

The Details:

The National Post reported that a 59-year-old man with congestive heart failure had been given less than a month to live without receiving a heart transplant. Ten days after being placed on the wait list and having his urgency status upgraded, a heart was found... from a man who had been killed by MAiD.

"A suitable donor was identified: a 38-year-old male with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) who was to receive MAID and wished to donate his organs,” the medical team said. "Provision of MAID and death determination occurred in keeping with Canadian standards."

The team added, “Death was declared within seven minutes of initiating the MAID protocol."

After harvesting the man's heart, it was delivered and transplanted in less than six hours. Since then, while there were some brief complications, the transplant recipient has been discharged. Ultimately, it is being used to further promote organ donation after euthanasia.

“While longer term data and data on additional cases will be required, this case suggests that safe cardiac transplantation can be performed after MAID,” the team said.

Why It Matters:

There have already been media reports about abuses in organ procurement for transplant, including no longer requiring brain death to be declared before harvesting a person's organs. But linking organ donation and assisted suicide or euthanasia is a system begging for abuse.

The notion of organ donation after assisted suicide further cements the idea that a suicidal person's life is not worth living, and that they are better off dead, or more valuable dead than alive. And yet, it is becoming increasingly common around the world.

As a review of the program in Australia found, this makes the coercion often associated with assisted suicide even worse:

Some experts added that no information should be given on organ allocation, due to the risk that knowing how many people their organs could help will prevent the MAiD patient from feeling absolute freedom to change their mind right up until the last time they are asked whether they wish to proceed, just before sub-stance administration.

In Canada specifically, partnering organ donation with euthanasia is particularly troubling, as the country's MAID program has already run off the rails. It has been touted as a way to save money, with doctors even pressuring patients to choose assisted suicide instead of treatment because it is cheaper. Additionally, there have been reports of euthanasia due to poverty, lack of adequate housing, a lack of disability-friendly housing, and more. Put plainly, people in Canada are able to be euthanized for virtually any reason, not just those who are terminally ill and don't wish to suffer.

The Bottom Line:

The MAID program encourages people struggling with suicidal ideation to die, rather than giving them help and support so they can choose to live. Pairing MAID with organ donation only encourages those suicidal ideations even further, though, as it not only agrees with the suicidal person that their life is not living, but that they will be doing the world a favor by dying, too - turning suicide into something positive, rather than a tragedy to prevent.