Is Human Organ Harvesting Behind Push to Legalize “Assisted Suicides”?
My first anti-assisted suicide article, in 1993, warned that the practice would lead to conjoining organ donation with euthanasia “as a plumb to society.” That is happening now in Netherlands and Belgium — including people with mental illnesses, no less. Now, very alarmingly, the United Network for Organ Sharing seems to be opening the door to letting those planning to commit assisted suicide become living organ donors before taking the lethal pills. From its proposed changes to the ethics of living organ donation to allow the terminally ill to participate: "We recommend that individuals with certain fatal diseases be allowed to donate their organs prior to an assisted suicide, but only in those U.S. states where physician assisted suicide is legal and individuals meet the criteria for physician assisted suicide."