Is organ harvesting driving euthanasia? The ugly truth about why Canada leads in MAiD organ donor transplants

This article about the reasons behind Canada's push for MAiD follows from "The harsh reality of euthanasia: Exposing the myth of a peaceful passing." If you have not read the first article in the series, "White Coat euthanasia: A license to kill in the name of care?," please read the preface.

‍

Canada — proud to the world in organ transplants from euthanasia

Canada legalized euthanasia or MAiD (medical assistance in dying) in 2016 and now the country has the dubious distinction of being the world’s leader in organ transplants from euthanized citizens. CTV News's Avis Favaro reported the results of a study published in December 2022, noting that the record is a source of pride for some, such as the University of Manitoba's Arthur Schafer.

‍“I was rather proud that Canada has done so well in terms of organ donation by MAID patients,” said Arthur Schafer, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba, in an interview with CTV News.

‍With more than 4,000 Canadians waiting for organ transplants, some of whom are dying, he says Canada’s numbers show a strong move to turn death into a win-win.

‍“So I say, 'Good on us.' It’s a wonderful opportunity for someone facing death to make something significant out of the end of their life,” said Schafer. 

Many MAiD victims weren't facing death

Schafer contends that MAiD victims are facing death in the near future. Moreover, as The Gold Report has shown previously, even those labeled terminally ill often do not die on schedule, or at any close time, despite their doctors' predictions that they would. Some will live well past their "predetermined" date of death, some weren't dying but just needed better care, and still others were misdiagnosed.

Furthermore, the study Favaro reviewed, was conducted in 2021, the year that Canada legalized euthanasia for disabled and chronically ill people, those whose deaths were not foreseeable, and even began offering MAiD to people who just require assistance but are refused the services and social supports they need.[1]

Perhaps they could have made "something significant out of their life."

Targeting people who may just need better healthcare‍

‍The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition states that people who are offered MAiD "include sufferers of autoimmune conditions, diabetes, and chronic pain who may be able to live for many more quality years, if they have better healthcare." Loosening of government restrictions on MAiD is frightening, the Coalition's director Alex Schadenberg told the Daily Mail.

[E]ver-more people are approved for euthanasia even when they suffer from nothing more than 'frailty' and other seemingly benign conditions.

It's scary how the system is getting looser, doctors are signing the paperwork, and people who didn’t meet the original criteria have become eligible.‍

Looser restrictions means more organ donors

Favaro explained that Canada's looser MAiD restrictions help to increase the number of people from whom organs can be harvested, such as patients suffering from ALS. Most of those for whom MAiD was originally legalized, those whose deaths were foreseeable, were cancer patients. Organs aren't harvested from cancer patients because of the risk to the recipient.

The other difference in Canada is based on the kinds of patients receiving MAID. In the Netherlands or Belgium, there is a larger proportion of patients with end-stage cancer who choose euthanasia. Those with cancer cannot donate because of the risks to the organ recipients.

In Canada, statistics show 65 per cent of patients seeking MAID have cancer.  

“And so I think that's one of the reasons why we are ahead of the game, is because more patients who seek MAID in Canada are eligible to donate because they have diseases like ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or multiple sclerosis,” said [Dr. Sam] Shemie [an intensive care unit doctor in Montreal and medical adviser to Canadian Blood Services].

Pulling the plug now a medical intervention

Scotland's Paul Atkin, during a discussion with Schadenberg (video below), asks how euthanasia has changed end-of-life care in Canada. Schadenberg explains that Canada views killing people as a medical intervention since it's done by white coats (by doctors) and nurses. The government wants every patient to know that being killed is an option and in most provinces the doctor does not have the right of conscience to omit option from the possible "treatments" offered to patients. Similarly, hospices cannot refuse to kill their patients.

Canada's MAiD — a gateway to organ donation

Favaro explained that, unlike Canada, other countries require the patient to bring up organ donation on their own; it is not to be suggested to them.

‍In other countries, patients themselves must first bring up the idea that they wish to donate. But Quebec and Ontario moved to telling patients earlier.

“In our province, in fact, if the law says if somebody is going to die, you should offer them organ donation and tissue donation, and we should apply that to MAID patients as well,” said  Shemie of Quebec's policy.

Notifying transplant agencies in Ontario

Ontario law obligates doctors to inform Ontario Health's Trillium Gift of Life Network about possible organ donors in order to increase the donor pool. It came into effect in 2006, as CBC reported at the time.

Organ donations in Ontario have tripled since the introduction of new death-reporting rules in January, a provincial agency said Tuesday.

The new rules, which came into effect Jan. 9, make it mandatory for 13 major hospitals in the province to report each death at their facilities to the Trillium Gift of Life Network, which matches patients in need of transplants with donors.

When a patient dies in one of the hospitals, one of 20 Trillium organ donation co-ordinators is called. They then figure out the best way to approach the dead patient's relatives to get consent for organs.

Killing Peter to save Paul(s)

Transplant anesthesiologist Claire Robinson explained organ donations from euthanasia victims works in an interview with the Kooman brothers for their documentary "Ethics and MAiD organ donation." Robinson told them that she is afraid that it can have the effect of validating and justifying MAiD (@4:03). She realized this while assisting at her first and only MAiD organ harvesting procedure. In her mind, harvesting organs from MAiD victims for transplants can have the horrifying effect of incentivizing health care professionals to persuade people to have doctors kill them.

I tried to tell myself that this was, the organ was just going to be lost otherwise. We were going to save a life, some good was going to come out of the difficult situation. But I the more I thought about it afterwards, the more I realized that I was not okay with this, that in my mind using organs after MAiD was validating and justifying the procedure and, in a horrible way, it might actually increase the numbers of patients who would seek MAiD for various reasons. So it was at that point that I started to looking into it. I went to my bosses and said I wasn't comfortable doing this.

She was shocked to discover that organ donation from MAiD victims was already embedded in the system.

. . . I was just shocked because I work in Ontario and the organ sharing network here is called Trillium and when I looked into it, Trillium had a whole toolbox for how to handle these cases, and it was obviously something that was already embedded into the system which, as I say, was s a huge surprise to me and I think, to be honest, a surprise to many of my colleagues as well.

Robinson further explained that organs from MAiD victims who don't have life threatening illnesses maybe more suitable for transplant (@18:44):

So now we're talking about potentially taking organs from people who don't have life , terminal diseases, which may mean that more suitable organs would be available.

Dead donors pile up

The graph below, from Statista, shows that the number of dead donors increased after doctors killing patients became legal in 2016, as compared to the number of living donors, which remained fairly consistent.

2023 numbers

While that chart ends with statistics from 2022, the Canadian Institute for Health Information provides summary statistics on organ transplant data through 2023. Here are some statistics from that year, showing another increase in the number of deceased donors.

A total of 3,428 organ transplants were performed in Canada in 2023; 83% of transplants used deceased donor organs and 17% used living donor organs.‍

4% of all transplants that occurred in 2023 used organs donated following medical assistance in dying (MAID).

Of the 952 deceased donors in 2023, 67% donated following neurological determination of death, 27% donated following death determination by circulatory criteria (non-MAID) and 6% donated following MAID.

That means that 2,845 organ transplants were from deceased donors, 137 of which were from 57 MAiD victims.

⪫⪫ How many of those 57 dead donors would be alive today if it weren't for MAiD?

‍

Please check back for our next article in the series, "Are organ donors really dead?"

‍

Related articles:‍

• The harsh reality of euthanasia: Exposing the myth of a peaceful passing
• Euthanasia by the numbers: Canadian doctors have already killed the equivalent of a small city‍
• Is euthanasia compassionate if offered to those who don’t want to die and doctors misjudge imminent death?
• White coat euthanasia: A license to kill in the name of care?
• Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) - a cruel way to die but not to the onlooker
• Disabled in Canada? Doctors may pressure you to end your life