It's Official: Let's Harvest Organs Before People Are Dead

Well, this idea has been bubbling up for a number of years, and now a prominent radical pro-deather and one of his students has outed the unthinkable in a so-called scholarly journal. Oxford’s Julian Savulescu is one of the most outspoken scholars calling for redefining death and pushing generally way-out-there utilitarian ideas. With this piece, he’s made it official: we should harvest organs from people for transplantation before they are dead. He’s also coined a new term: Organ Donation Euthanasia. I for one am (ahem) so excited about this cutting edge thinking.

Organ Donation Euthanasia

. . .This is a proposal for those 5000 patients each year who will have their life saving treatment stopped. We can give them the option in advance to donate their organs if they are ever going to have their treatment limited because their prognosis is deemed hopeless. If the person agreed in advance to be such an organ donor, and an independent committee confirmed that the patient’s prognosis was hopeless and treatment should be stopped, the patient could be taken to an operating theatre in controlled circumstances, given a general anaesthetic and have their organs removed. The surgical procedure would be a form of euthanasia. We could call it “organ-donation euthanasia”. This option would give people the best chance of ensuring that their organs do not go to waste after their death. It would also prevent the patient from suffering after life support was withdrawn. It would harm noone, and would potentially benefit a number of seriously ill patients in organ failure. more