Back when I first got into this line of work, I wrote a piece for Newsweek about the dangers of euthanasia consciousness. I was a naif at the time. I had no idea how insidiously seductive the culture of death could be nor how deeply it had already seeped into the culture of the West. Since then, the darkness has spread like a stain.
But even then, in my innocence, I was prophetic. Here’s a key paragraph from my first anti-euthanasia piece, “The Whispers of Strangers,” published on June 28, 1993:
Of greater concern to me is the moral trickledown effect that could result should society ever come to agree with Frances. Life is action and reaction, the proverbial pebble thrown into the pond. We don’t get to the Brave New World in one giant leap. Rather, the descent to depravity is reached by small steps. First, suicide is promoted as a virtue. Vulnerable people like Frances become early casualties. Then follows mercy killing of the terminally ill. From there, it’s a hop, skip and a jump to killing people who don’t have a good “quality” of life, perhaps with the prospect of organ harvesting thrown in as a plum to society.
Over the years, I have been told many times that my fears would never happen. Assisted suicide/euthanasia was just for the terminally ill, at the very end of life, for whom nothing can be done to alleviate suffering. We would never use euthanasia to harvest organs!
For years I waited for the organ harvesting shoe to drop. Then, I found a letter in a transplant medicine journal in which doctors admitted harvesting organs from the euthanasia of a catastrophically disabled woman. They had done it, the letter stated, ergo it was ethical. That’s the kind of self justification we see in this field.
Now, Belgian doctors have taken to the road to sell the idea. From the story:
A group of Belgian doctors are harvesting “high quality” organs from patients who have been euthanased. This is not a secret project, but one which they described openly at a conference organised by the Belgian Royal Medical Academy in December. In a PowerPoint presentation, Dirk Ysebaert, Dirk Van Raemdonck, Michel Meurisse, of the University Hospitals Of Antwerp, Leuven And Liège, showed that about 20% of the 705 people who died through euthanasia (officially) in 2008 were suffering from neuromuscular disorders whose organs are relatively high quality for transplanting to other patients. This represents a useful pool of organs which could help to remedy a shortage of organs in Belgium (as everywhere else).
I can think of few more dangerous activities then to convince people with disabilities–and society–that their deaths have greater value than their lives. That pebble with which I was concerned has grown into a massive boulder that is generating tidal waves of harm.
January 25th, 2011 | 1:50 pm
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January 25th, 2011 | 2:56 pm
I am very pessimistic about the trend to accept these “new ethics”, their existence, as you say, justifying their, erm, existence.
I read opinions that aborting a disabled child is “the only humane thing to do” because obviously if you are severely disabled you have no quality of life. Then come those that openly say disabled children shouldn’t be taking up a part of the education budget since they aren’t “productive”. This last thing is said in earnestness and any opposition to it with the disclosure of being a father to an extremely disabled child is immediately dismissed as being “over emotional”
I’m very close to a person who over thirty years ago made up her mind that if she is no longer able to care for herself and dying she doesn’t want to be a burden to her family and so will choose euthanasia. Now, years later, she is exactly in that situation. I certainly have conflicting feelings about this. Feeling it is her right to decide. The problem lying of course when people are incapacitated and not able to decide for themselves.
Now this, the organs, will most certainly be spun in to acceptance as only a good thing, saving others’ lives and if you are going to save others’ lives the organs must be in good condition.
“You wouldn’t want to wait around too long and damage those life saving organs would you?”
January 25th, 2011 | 4:58 pm
Wes, what you left out from the article is this:
“They have developed a protocol for the procedure. There has to be a strict separation between the euthanasia request, the euthanasia procedure, and the organ procurement. The donor and his (or her) relatives have to consent. The euthanasia is performed by a neurologist or psychiatrist and two house physicians. Organ retrieval begins after clinical diagnosis of death by the three physicians. And, of course, staff participation is voluntary.”
I can see your objection to the euthanasia in the first place, but the patient and next of kin all gave consent for the organ donation. Most likely several people were saved or restored to more normal function by that generous donation. You can argue the slippery slope all you want, but imho once the patient gave consent and was deceased they acted completely ethically.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 25th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
I didn’t leave it out. if I linked it. The protocol is meaningless. If doctors and despairing patients know that organ donation can be coupled, different teams mean nothing. And by the way, once the project got going, those guidelines would disintegrate like toilet paper being flushed. Just like the other safety guidelines have in Netherlands and Belgium, e.g. non voluntary euthanasia, nurses doing the killing, infanticide, etc. Really, padraig. You follow this blog. You know what is happening. You may not disagree with what is happening, but there is no way to say that the guidelines in those countries are adhered to.
January 25th, 2011 | 5:03 pm
Liberals are in favor of whatever has to be done to get rid of “those people” who are cluttering up THEIR world.
Babies, old people, people who insist on having jobs in places that would be environmentally gorgeous if only the people would just go away…
I used to not understand why liberals claimed to care about all these problems, then would come up with solutions that would make the problems worse instead of fixing them.
Now we know: it’s half scapegoating, half eradication of the Other, mixed in equal measure, and coated in language that makes the liberal feel that somehow what he is doing is compassionate, rather than evil.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 25th, 2011 at 5:57 pm
Not sure this can be pegged on liberals per se. This is naked utilitarianism. Some liberals, I am sure, would oppose. And some conservatives might support. It depends on one’s view of the equality and sanctity of human life and the protection of the despairing and self destructive.
January 25th, 2011 | 8:24 pm
You are right: I should not use the word “liberal”.
However, I think I could safely use the word “progressive”, because this whole attack on life is intrinsically tied in with the myth of progress – a narrative that began with the Enlightenment and presumably ends with what we used to call “Utopia”.
I have a bad habit of conflating the two groups (progressives and liberals), but they are not the same.
January 25th, 2011 | 9:26 pm
[...] Wesley J. Smith’s bioethics blog, Secondhand Smoke, Belgian doctors eye the “pool” of handicapped as a good source of high-quality organs: [...]
January 25th, 2011 | 10:14 pm
“Some liberals, I am sure, would oppose.”
Name one other than Nat Hentoff.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 25th, 2011 at 10:28 pm
Lydia: Ralph Nader.
January 26th, 2011 | 7:19 pm
Far more “liberals” than merely Hentoff or Nader oppose this. Then again, what is a “liberal?”
Leftists are no more “liberal” than RINO’s and Republicans are “conservative.”
January 26th, 2011 | 9:59 pm
In reference to the consent issues for the mentally incompaticated. There are ways around everything, including those consents. Take the case of Gary Harvey who became vegetative in 2006 when he fell down a flight of stairs and suffered traumatic brain injury. Sure, they held a ethics committee to decide if this guy was to live or die, but what they didn’t do is invite his wife to attend to provide consent. Instead, they invited his ex-wife who bitterly hated him and his estranged children (who had financial interests). His own lawyer provided by Mental Hygiene Legal Services wrote in a letter that said “if there was one in attendance that diagreed, then it would trigger a mediation dispute (such as his wife, Sara Harvey). So, he indirectly directed them to conduct the committee and to NOT invite her in order to conclude the meeting with their predetermined outcome which was to pull his feeding tubes without any interference from someone such as “HIS WIFE”.
January 27th, 2011 | 11:01 am
It is unfair (and inaccurate) to say that the Belgian doctors “used euthanasia to harvest organs” (i.e that killings were the means to the ultimate objective of retrieving transplantable organs).
Yes, they took organs from euthanized patients – but these patients were killed at their own request and for reasons ostensibly unrelated to organ transplantation. And the fact that some of them might have been disabled doesn’t change the morality of it (though it might affect our emotional reactions).
I do however agree with your ethical take on this, Wesley: linking organ retrieval to euthanasia would exert undue pressure on the terminally ill and create a climate in which they feel that killing themselves (or allowing themselves to be killed) would be the “right” thing to do even if they might have been, without the added incentive, more than willing to fight on till the last breath.
It is easy to speak of individual choice and autonomy, but how much choice does a vulnerable person really have if we (entirely inadvertently and for the noblest reasons) lead them to believe that they are far more useful to us alive than dead?
And my guess is (though I have no supportive data), that a significant proportion of American “liberals”, however you choose to define the term, would have similar concerns.
January 27th, 2011 | 12:59 pm
that should read “far more useful to us dead than alive“.
January 29th, 2011 | 6:58 pm
The conservatives agree by keeping silent on the issue of euthanasia. I live in one of the most conservative states in the nation. Our legislature and governor are getting ready to balance the budget on the backs of the disabled. Our hospitals give a full-court press to end life for anyone who enters the hospital with a brain injury, whether or not the neurologists agrees that the patient is brain dead. Then the uninvited “end of life” counselors, who have little or no training in brain injury rehabilitaton, have the audacity to bill for their unwelcome services.
In one situation, the patient was a brittle diabetic. The doctors pushed for her kidneys even though the PCP had said the kidneys were showing signs of trouble. In the ICUs and CCUs, the new killing fields of America, many lose their lives to the organ donor market. Families are made to feel guilty for not ending life. When you examine the survival rate and “quality of life” of organ recipients, it isn’t any better, according to the CDC, than the person who was brain injured.
The professionals quote the cost of rehabilitating the brain injured patient. Those stats in comparison to organ transplants and long-term costs do NOT make it cost effective to kill off those who were unfortunate enough to suffer a brain injury.
In this case, the mother, who stood alone for recovery, enjoys seeing the progress her daughter is making toward recovery.
Who is at fault for this mess. Look in the mirror. We have all been guilty of loking
January 29th, 2011 | 7:00 pm
The conservatives agree by keeping silent on the issue of euthanasia. I live in one of the most conservative states in the nation. Our legislature and governor are getting ready to balance the budget on the backs of the disabled. Our hospitals give a full-court press to end life for anyone who enters the hospital with a brain injury, whether or not the neurologists agrees that the patient is brain dead. Then the uninvited “end of life” counselors, who have little or no training in brain injury rehabilitaton, have the audacity to bill for their unwelcome services.
In one situation, the patient was a brittle diabetic. The doctors pushed for her kidneys even though the PCP had said the kidneys were showing signs of trouble. In the ICUs and CCUs, the new killing fields of America, many lose their lives to the organ donor market. Families are made to feel guilty for not ending life. When you examine the survival rate and “quality of life” of organ recipients, it isn’t any better, according to the CDC, than the person who was brain injured.
The professionals quote the cost of rehabilitating the brain injured patient. Those stats in comparison to organ transplants and long-term costs do NOT make it cost effective to kill off those who were unfortunate enough to suffer a brain injury.
In this case, the mother, who stood alone for recovery, enjoys seeing the progress her daughter is making toward recovery.
Who is at fault for this mess? Look in the mirror. We have all been guilty of looking the other way in the past 30 years while the bio ethics committees had their way with the lives of the vulnerable.
February 2nd, 2011 | 6:50 am
“but imho once the patient gave consent and was deceased they acted completely ethically.”
Sure, all things are “ethical” with the dead. They have lost their voice with the last breath.
It remains for the living to continue to lend their voice to these issues.
As a registered nurse one of my concerns is how the industry for organ retrieval has removed the bedside nurse from the process. We are no longer allowed interventional status to discuss these things with our clients and their families. A polished team is sent to the bedside to pitch the case with the family. It does seem that at times of such crisis and family vulnerability that the family needs to take a step back and consider what they cherish and/or value concerning life.
I am not against organ donation. I do harbor a few concerns regarding the procurement process.
Tammy Swofford
February 6th, 2011 | 4:06 am
I am a student required to write an essay “SHOULD TERMINALLY ILL PATIENTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE ASSISTED IN THE TAKIING OF THEIR OWN LIFES ?” I was doing some research regarding this topic when i stumbled on this content and i must say I am stunnend !!!
February 11th, 2011 | 2:08 pm
Thank you for increasing awareness on this important issue Our Long Island Chapter of University Faculty for Life will be having a program on this in the fall. More people need to become aware of the abuses involved with some organ donations.
February 22nd, 2011 | 8:04 pm
[...] kill himself. And I certainly don’t want to comment specifically about his tragic death. But surely, with Belgium doctors now harvesting organs from people who were killed in euthanasia, this tragic story is a warning of what could happen if despairing people ever came to think that [...]
February 23rd, 2011 | 2:16 pm
This is sickening. Europe has lost its soul.
February 23rd, 2011 | 4:56 pm
[...] to kill himself. And I certainly don’t want to comment specifically about his tragic death. But surely, with Belgium doctors now harvesting organs from people with disabilities who were killed…, this tragic story is a warning of what could happen if despairing people ever came to think that [...]
February 27th, 2011 | 7:51 pm
Euthanasia scares me more than any other laws people are trying to pass; the idea of growing up in a world that says, when things get hard, we give up. When people’s live’s are tough, we kill them, because things like pain take all the fun out of living. We forgot how to find meaning in adversity, we forgot what compassion really is, we forgot that life is not where you are but what you make it.
March 6th, 2011 | 11:59 am
[...] to kill and harvest organs from people in a persistently unconscious condition. We have discusses how euthanasia and organ donation are now coupled in Belgium. And we have discussed how Jack Kevorkian, before turning to the sick and disabled, went from [...]
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