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Euthanasia Activists Want to Harvest Organs From Conscious ICU Patients

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Photo Credit: LifeNews Pick your cliche: Give them an inch and they will take a mile; in for a penny in for a pound, etc. In bioethics, there is never a permanent boundary beyond which the utilitarian impulse will not take them.

Now, advocacy is beginning to ask conscious patients who want to stop life-sustaining treatment for their organs. So far, this “non-heartbeating cadaver donor” process has only been done with the profoundly cognitively disabled. But now, that line is under assault.

From an article by Dutch ethicists–euthanasialand!_in Clinical Ethics (201 3 Volume 8 Number I​):

In a medical community in which withdrawal of lifesustaining measures in unconscious and in conscious ICU patients is accepted, where organ donation after death is common practice, and in which there is a shortage of organs for transplantation, there can be no moral objection to ask certain conscious ICU patients to donate their organs after death.

Read more from this story HERE.

Belgium Set to Extend Right-To-Die Law to Children

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Photo Credit: Reuters Belgium, one of the very few countries where euthanasia is legal, is expected to take the unprecedented step this week of abolishing age restrictions on who can ask to be put to death — extending the right to children for the first time.

The legislation appears to have wide support in the largely liberal country. But it has also aroused intense opposition from foes — including a list of pediatricians — and everyday people who have staged noisy street protests, fearing that vulnerable children will be talked into making a final, irreversible choice.

Backers like Dr. Gerland van Berlaer, a prominent Brussels pediatrician, believe it is the merciful thing to do. The law will be specific enough that it will only apply to the handful of teenage boys and girls who are in advanced stages of cancer or other terminal illnesses and suffering unbearable pain, he said.

Under current law, they must let nature take its course or wait until they turn 18 and can ask to be euthanized.

“We are talking about children that are really at the end of their life. It’s not that they have months or years to go. Their life will end anyway,” said Van Berlaer, chief of clinic in the pediatric critical care unit of University Hospital Brussels. “The question they ask us is: ‘Don’t make me go in a terrible, horrifying way, let me go now while I am still a human being and while I still have my dignity.'”

Read more from this story HERE.

Belgian Transsexual, 44, Elects to Die by Euthanasia after Botched Sex-Change Operation; 1 in 50 in Country Die from Doctor Assisted Suicide

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Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Facebook

A Belgian transsexual has chosen to die by euthanasia after a botched sex change operation to complete his transformation into a man left him a ‘monster’.

Nathan Verhelst, 44, died yesterday afternoon after being allowed have his life ended on the grounds of ‘unbearable psychological suffering’.

It is understood to be the first time someone in Belgium has chosen euthanasia after a sex-change, and comes soon after it emerged that it is now the cause of nearly one in 50 deaths in the country.

Born a girl named Nancy, his transformation into a man began with hormone therapy in 2009, followed by a mastectomy and finally an operation to construct a penis last year.

But the procedures did not go according to plan.

Read more from this story HERE.

“Brain-Dead” Organ Donor Awakens Immediately Before Organs Were to be Harvested (+video)

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The world of organ donation in Denmark is in turmoil. A documentary was aired earlier this month which showed family members reacting in anguish to the news that their 19-year-old daughter was brain dead after a car accident, agreeing to donate her organs and allowing doctors to turn off her respirator. About 1.7 million viewers tuned in to the heart-rending drama.

But Carina Melchior did not die after her respirator was removed. She is now undergoing rehabilitation and may make a full recovery. About 500 people immediately removed their names from Denmark’s organ donor register.

Doctors at Aarhus University Hospital were embarrassed by the incident. “We are overjoyed that the young woman survived and that she is moving on after the accident,” Claus Thomsen, the hospital’s chief medical officer, said. “But we made a mistake underway and made the family believe that their daughter and sister would die.”

The hospital acknowledged that the question of organ donation should not have been raised as there were no unambiguous signs that brain death would occur. New guidelines have been introduced to ensure that relatives will only be approached about organ donation if no more treatment options are available. There was no risk of a false diagnosis of brain death, the hospital insisted. Read more from this story HERE.

Bombshell Lawsuit: Organs taken from Live Patients that Doctors were Pressured to Declare Brain Dead

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The New York Organ Donor Network pressured hospital staffers to declare patients brain dead so their body parts could be harvested — and even hired “coaches” to train staffers how to be more persuasive, a bombshell lawsuit charged yesterday.

The federally funded nonprofit used a “quota” system, and leaned heavily on the next of kin to sign consent forms when patients were not registered as organ donors, the suit charged.

“They’re playing God,” said plaintiff Patrick McMahon, 50, an Air Force combat veteran and nurse practitioner who claims he was fired as a transplant coordinator after just four months for protesting the practice.

The suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, cited four examples of improper organ harvesting.

In September 2011, a 19-year-old man injured in a car wreck was admitted to Nassau University Medical Center. He was still trying to breathe and showed signs of brain activity, the suit charged.

But doctors declared him brain dead under pressure from donor-network officials, including Director Michael Goldstein, who allegedly said during a conference call: “This kid is dead, you got that?” the suit charged.

Read more from this story HERE.