well, this idea is now being pushed in mainstream medical transplant journals, under the guise that euthanasia was chosen by the patient or family, so it's okay to take out their heart for transplant it to help someone else as a way to euthanaize them.
The ethical problem? similar to using the organs of those given the death penalty: it will encourage people to figure these people are better off dead and helping someone else, so more felons will be given the death penalty. Or in this case, encouraged to kill themselves so their loved ones won't have to care for them, and hey, some rich dude will get their organs and live.
Ah, but what if God wants them to suffer? place evil god meme here. (wiser men than me have debated the problem of pain and there is no easy answer).
Nah, our theraputic god wants us to be rich and happy. Suffering is taboo. As for pain relief: well some druggies want to take smuggled in Chinese fentanyl and have died of overdoses, so forget that oxycontin that allowed you to live pain free: no narcs for you. So either live in pain or sign here to donate your organs.
Excuse my sarcasm.
There have been cases where the mentally disabled were used for organ donations after doctors told their family they were brain dead. In at least one case, the guy was not brain dead so the doc had to help him along, but never mind. This was California and he was a minority and what do they know?
in this case, the doctors told the family he would never recover, so they said it was okay to take their son's organs... but he was not brain dead, and to make him dead, the doctor overdosed him.
expect to see more propaganda pushing the glamour of Euthanasia for the useless old or handicapped. Why? Because they cost money to care for, and of course, it is economically better if their caregivers were freed up to work and expand the economy than to stay home and care for them. (see earlier rant about pushing women into the workforce).
So the idea to declare people non persons and use them for organ donors, or to persuade the handicapped to permit euthanasia by organ donation, once ideas so anathema to ordinary folks that they were hidden using euphemisms in bioethics journals, now is being proposed in more mainstream transplantation journals.
LINK
as more and more rumors of such cases hit the rumor mill, the result will be fewer willing to donate organs.
How bad is it? Well, 20+ years ago, bioethicist Arthur Caplan wrote a letter to JAMA telling the story that when he got his drivers license, the lady warned him not to check the box for organ donors, "or they will let you die".
From Snopes:
the "slight of hand" in this fact check ignores that the Emergency room docs will try to save you so you can be sent to ICU to die, and then when you are declared brain dead they can ask for your organs. (in western Pennsylvania, they kept you alive to send you to Pittsburgh where they did transplants. The ambulance drivers called such trips "organ runs"...)
Myth: If emergency room doctors know you’re an organ donor, they won’t work as hard to save you.
Fact: If you are sick or injured and admitted to the hospital, the number one priority is to save your life. Organ donation can only be considered after brain death has been declared by a physician. Many states have adopted legislation allowing individuals to legally designate their wish to be a donor should brain death occur, although in many states Organ Procurement Organizations also require consent from the donor’s family.
Except now families of those with poor prognosis are being encouraged to donate their loved ones organs, under the impression they are brain dead when they are not. This confusion only will make people more suspicious and not willing to donate their organs.
Voila: New laws on the books mandating organ donation without consent is being done in some countries.
there already is a lot of suspicion about end of life care in minority communities, and the Jathi McMath case didn't help (she lived for five years after being declared "brain dead", meaning she was misdiagnosed). In that case, as a Doctor, I have to note: she must have been misdiagnosed, since with full brain death her organs would have shut down. And of course, the fact that the hospital would have been liable to a huge malpractice suit for her brain injury has nothing to do with their rush to declare her dead. (/s)/
the wish of minority communities to full treatment, because they are suspicious of racial prejudice being behind the withdrawal of treatment, (not just the Tuskegee study confirms this bias: also see Oklahoma meningocoel case where years later a black doctor reviewed the article and found out that most of the "non treatment" cases were minority kids whose parents didn't quite understand that treatment would save the kids lives. Duh.... the doctors justified this by saying "Cuts in government funding for indigent medical care and special education diminished the quality of life for poorer children with disabilities, they argued, thereby justifying the non treatment and deaths of some infants." ).
the wish for full care is now being lamented in as "denial of end of life care" for minorities. as in this UKGuardian article. Bullcrappie. They just don't trust you.
In the UK, the Liverpool protocol for pain relief quickly morphed into a way to kill the elderly who were not terminal, and as euthanizing people gets more popular, expect more cases of medical personnel just doing it on their own.
Sigh.
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