Belgian Doctors Euthanized Disabled Patient and Harvested Her Organs » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog

I found the article about the Belgian euthanasia coupled with organ harvesting referenced in my critique yesterday of a bioethics journal article urging that very approach. The woman in question was not terminally ill, but in a “locked-in” state, that is, fully conscious and completely paralyzed. She wanted to die–a desire accommodated by her doctors. Just prior to being killed, she decided to donate her organs. From, “Organ donation after physician-assisted death,” (Letter to the Editor) published in the journal Transplantation (21 (2008) 915–no link):