Ethical issues abound as Australian woman’s organs are donated after assisted suicide

An Australian woman is being praised as the country’s first organ donor after utilizing the country’s Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) assisted suicide laws. 

According to ABC News, Marlene Bevern ended her own life earlier this year after she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of motor neuron disease (MND). Before she died, Bevern insisted that her organs be harvested for donation, something that had never been done before in Australia. 

Rohit D’Costa, state medical director of DonateLife Victoria, told ABC News he was delighted at the prospect that more people could donate their organs after ending their own lives by assisted suicide. If such laws were established throughout Australia, he believes it could help relieve the nation’s extensive organ transplant waiting list.

Deakin University Law School Associate Professor Neera Bhatia previously told ABC News he is advocating for guidelines that would normalize organ donation. “We know there is an organ shortage in Australia, and we know that people can legally access voluntary assisted dying,” he said. “Why not allow people to do both?”

READ: Doctor endorses idea of people committing suicide through organ donation

Though organ donation can be valuable, it should never be applauded after assisted suicide or euthanasia. Positing organ donation as a positive thing after someone takes their own life only leads to the coercion and pressure that many terminally ill and elderly patients already experience. These vulnerable populations may feel as though they have an obligation to go through with euthanasia in order to help people waiting for an organ donation.

Organ donation after euthanasia is a practice that has already been implemented in other countries, with Canada accounting for almost half of the documented post-euthanasia organ transplants across the world.

An international review of that country’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) laws warned that encouraging organ donation could increase coercion for patients, stating 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 substance administration,”

The report also said organ donation “raises some important ethical concerns involving patient autonomy, the link between the request for MAID and the request to donate organs, and the increased burden placed on seriously ill MAID patients.”