Organ donation system. Killing donors for organs must stop

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director,
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On July 23 I wrote about The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) media release from July 21, 2025 concerning the organ transplant system in the United States. The US Health and Human Services examined 351 organ donation approvals and determined that in 103 cases their were concerns that the dead donor rule may have been violated.

Organ donation is a difficult topic to write about since organ donation can save lives. I have been writing about issues related to organ donation for many years. It is a scandal that death is sometimes caused by organ removal rather than organs being retrieved from a dead donor. 

In 2023, an effort to legitimize harvesting organs from living people was prevented when the Uniform Law Commission stopped the effort to revise the UDDA. The revision to the UDDA was designed to give legal cover when organs are taken from people who have not yet died but have an irreversible condition.

On July 31, Wesley Smith published an article about a group of physicians who wrote an article that was published in the New York Times calling for the re-definition of death. If they redefine death, then organs can be taken from live donors who have been declared dead. Smith wrote:

First, the authors lament the difficulty of obtaining healthy organs from people whose hearts stop irreversibly after the removal of life support. They also bemoan the shortage of “brain-dead” donors. Then, after discussing a controversial approach that restarts circulation after cardiac arrest (but not to the brain) — which I have posted about before — they get down to the nitty-gritty of redefining death. From “Donor Organs Are Too Rare. We Need a New Definition of Death“.

There is currently a Bill in Congress (H.R. 330) titled the: Organ Donation Referral Improvement Act. Congress need to shelve any legislation to improve the organ donation referral system while there is evidence that the dead donor rule is often being ignored. (Link to the media release).

Instead, there must be more research into the abuses related to the organ donation / retrieval system. Secondly, abuses of the system need to be strongly dealt with. This is a life and death issue. Thirdly, there needs to be a clean-up of the organ donation industry, not only in the US but world-wide. 

Any legislative attempts to increase the availability of organs for transplant must be shelved until the organ donation/retrieval system is surgically repaired.

Killing donors for organs must stop.

More articles about this topic:

• HHS found a systematic disregard for the organ donation dead donor rule (Link).
• Euthanasia turning suicidal people into 'Kill and Harvest' natural resource (Link). 
• Let's not get rid of the Dead Donor rule (Link).
• No to Killing for Organs (Link).
• Canada leads the world in organ donation after euthanasia (Link).

Killing for organs.

This article was published by National Review online on July 31, 2025.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J. Smith

Good motives sometimes lead to terrible places. Such is the case with the understandable desire to increase the organ supply, which for years has tempted some bioethicists to stretch the ethics of transplant medicine beyond the breaking point.

Now, in the New York Times, three doctors promote the idea of “redefining death” to allow patients to be killed for their organs. First, the authors lament the difficulty of obtaining healthy organs from people whose hearts stop irreversibly after the removal of life support. They also bemoan the shortage of “brain-dead” donors. Then, after discussing a controversial approach that restarts circulation after cardiac arrest (but not to the brain) — which I have posted about before — they get down to the nitty-gritty of redefining death. From “Donor Organs Are Too Rare. We Need a New Definition of Death“:

The solution, we believe, is to broaden the definition of brain death to include irreversibly comatose patients on life support. Using this definition, these patients would be legally dead regardless of whether a machine restored the beating of their heart.

So long as the patient had given informed consent for organ donation, removal would proceed without delay. The ethical debate about normothermic regional perfusion would be moot. And we would have more organs available for transplantation.

Then, they depersonalize people with severe cognitive disabilities:

Apart from increased organ availability, there is also a philosophical reason for wanting to broaden the definition of brain death. The brain functions that matter most to life are those such as consciousness, memory, intention and desire. Once those higher brain functions are irreversibly gone, is it not fair to say that a person (as opposed to a body) has ceased to exist?

No, it is not! Redefining as dead someone who is actually living would subjectivize the value of human life. We are either all equal while alive, or we are not. And if we are not, kiss universal human rights goodbye and say hello to increased oppression and exploitation of those deemed by those with power to be expendable or less than human.

The authors hint at the recent exposé published by the Times — which we discussed here the other day — that showed that ethical corners are being cut in some hospitals, which is leading to organ procurement from patients who might not be dead. Don’t they think that will also happen — probably with greater frequency — if doctors harvest the organs of the (believed to be) irreversibly comatose? Nope:

That sort of concern, however, is about practicalities such as whether doctors are following protocol properly and whether external pressures are creating perverse incentives for doctors and other medical workers to be careless. These are critical issues, to be sure. But it remains possible (and common) to responsibly determine whether someone is irreversibly comatose, and in such cases a judgment of brain death is merited, as the law should be revised to reflect.

But even if patients were in an irreversible coma, they would not be dead. Therefore the proposal to redefine death is in fact a push to lie about the killing of living human beings for their organs. And if all that matters is consent, why limit the donors to the comatose? Why not kill anyone who really wants to die by organ-harvesting, which has been repeatedly proposed by bioethicists.

One last point. Studies have shown that some people thought to be unconscious are actually aware. Given the mistakes we see being made now in the organ donor system, imagine the damage that would be done to public trust in transplant medicine if the seemingly or actually unconscious were dehumanized into so many organ farms.

We must not yield to the utilitarian temptation in health care. Pretending that a patient is dead does not make him deceased. This proposal — and others like it — have the awful potential to seriously corrode trust in the ethics of transplant medicine among an already wary public. In the end, if potential donors are scared away from giving the gift of life, those who would ultimately suffer the most would be organ recipients.

Dying with Dignity corporate donor boycott.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director,
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is asking you to boycott the Dying With Dignity (DWD) corporate donors. Boycott as many of the DWD corporate donors or you can. We have a list of the main corporations below. Here is the full list of DWD donors (Link).

On July 16, Kelsi Sheren published an article titled: Corporate Killers. How Bell and Meta profit from Canada's MAiD Suicide Crisis (Article Link).

We encourage you to also join us in contacting each of these corporations/organizations with a simple explanation of why we oppose euthanasia and why we are boycotting them. They will more likely respond after being directly contacted.

Here is a list of key DWD corporate donors. We highlighted the larger corporations. Please boycott the corporations that you can:

• Acadia University Alumni Association
• Ace Fund at Calgary Foundation 
• ALS
• Angell Gallery
• ATB Financial Uplift
• Bell
• Best Buy
• Canada Panel Systems Inc.
• Desjardins Insurance
• Eco Clip Solutions Inc.
• Edmonton Community Foundation
• Farm Mutual Reinsurance Plan Inc.
• Intact Insurance
• JP Wiebe Management Consulting Inc
• Kilgorie Investment Inc
• Lionel Investments Limited
• London Drugs Limited
• Manulife Investment Management
• Manulife Wealth
• Mashi Moosh
• McMaster University
• Microsoft
• NB Pharmacists’ Association
• Nurse On Board
• Omicron Master Chapter Beta Sigma Phi Sorority
• On Location Machining Services Ltd
• Patrick Higgins Personal Real Estate Corporation
• Pay Pal
• Profile Communications Ltd
• Quesnel Art Gallery
• RBC Foundation
• Salt Air Fund
• Seville Land Corp
• Sun Life Financial
• Suncor
• TELUS
• ThanksVegan Foundation
• The Royal City Men’s Club
• Toronto Running Club
• UHMC- The United Hebrew Memorial Chapel of Hamilton
• Zentil Property Management

Has Slovenia legalized assisted suicide?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director,
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On July 18, the Slovenian parliament passed an assisted suicide bill by a vote of 50 - 34. However, on July 23, “the National Council, a bipartisan regulatory entity, vetoed the legislation with a decisive 20-9 vote, necessitating its return to parliament for further deliberation,” according to Reuters.

Since then the Slovenian Upper House has once again passed the assisted suicide bill.

Based on this information Slovenia has not legalized assisted suicide.

At the same time, 15,000 signatures were submitted for an official referendum on the assisted suicide bill. They will need to collect 40,000 signatures to verify the referendum.

Alex Schadenberg speaking

In January 2024, I travelled to Slovenia to meet with politicians, media outlets, including television news interviews and I spoke at a large gathering in Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital, to oppose the previous Slovenian euthanasia bill, which was very similar to Canada's euthanasia law.

In March 2024 I was informed by groups that oppose euthanasia, that the bill was defeated. The Slovenian government responded by announcing their intention to have a referendum on the "basic question" of assisted suicide rather than the bill they were debating.

By having a referendum on a basic question, rather than the language of the bill, it turned the referendum into a theoretical debate rather than an actual debate. In June 2024, I reported that the Slovenian people passed the non-binding referendum (55% to 45%) which in fact was support for the concept of assisted suicide.

If enough signatures are collected, Slovenia will have a referendum on the assisted suicide bill.

How the MAiD Movement Signals the Decline of Western Culture

This article was published by Kelsi Sheren on her Substack on July 21, 2025.

Kelsi Sheren

By Kelsi Sherin

YES another article on MAiD, but this time this one felt weird. Have you heard of Be Ceremonial? Specifically their programs about MAiD. It hit me hard, hard enough to stop what I was doing and write this. This one made me genuinely upset and angry. Once again seeing someone exploit death and promote MAiD. Seeing death celebrated alongside big life events like the birth of a child and marriages felt fundamentally wrong. It made me think about how far we've fallen as a society in the west and how we now celebrate choosing death as though it were something noble or courageous to strive for.

In case your unaware or if I haven’t made it clear before. I don’t support MAiD or the people who push it on our society like they’re saving people. They kill people and promote it in book’s and on social media. Compassionate care and dignity are what everyone deserves at the end of their life, but actively encouraging or celebrating medically assisted suicide crosses a moral and ethical line for me. They’ve been promoting death as something ritualistic and ceremonial like a wedding or a birth and this dangerously normalizes the act of ending a life. This is a Dr or nurse killing someone before they were supposed to leave this earth. That’s not care and compassion, that’s removing hope and prematurely hastening death.

One of my many issues with MAiD is the message this sends to the population, a seriously harmful message that surrendering, giving up, or ending your life early is somehow admirable or even desirable, it’s the cool new popular thing to do. It feel’s to me like society is losing sight of life's inherent value and what it truly means to be alive. Life was never promised without suffering, and anyone who's lived knows that pain isn't optional. Suffering isn't something you choose, but it's proof you're still breathing, still fighting, and still here.

Pain, struggle, loss these things carve us out, forging stronger, more resilient versions of ourselves. If you're suffering, you're feeling something real. You're awake to your life, connected deeply to your humanity, living in the gritty, messy truth of existence. That's the price we pay to experience all of life and it’s true purpose. Suffering reminds you you're human and if you're human, you're alive, ready to keep moving forward until the natural end. It's beyond irresponsible and deeply harmful for our media, “charities” and others to package a tragic, irreversible choice as just another marketable life event, glamorizing something that steals away our most precious gift: life itself.

I personally understand and respect the power of ritual. Ritual has helped me significantly in processing trauma and healing from my time overseas. I've used plant medicine and psychedelic-assisted therapy to overcome trauma. While rituals can be profoundly healing, when we start associating them with the deliberate act of ending someone’s life prematurely, we dangerously blur the line between healing and harm. I would even go as far to say that this act of killing causes more trauma than people are willing to admit. I’ve seen this personally with a significant amount of families and their loved ones. MAiD breaks families and anyone it touches. MAiD is sold to individuals as the solution “It’s ok if your family doesn’t understand, we do and we can be your family now if yours doesn’t approve” We need to stop pretending MAiD doesn’t leave crater size damage. MAiD leaves behind the feeling's of “I couldn’t save them, I couldn’t stop them”. That level of helplessness is excruciating to live with.

Watching someone die, especially through a process like MAiD, is far more traumatic and distressing than most people realize. If you need a quick reminder, MAiD is still killing no matter what fancy acronym they slap on it, it's still death. Here's a widespread myth that medically assisted dying is always peaceful, gentle, or dignified, but this is often far from reality. Many documented cases show how MAiD procedures have gone terribly wrong, and when I say wrong I mean bad. People have awakened mid-death, needing to be re-drugged. Cases of people in the US asking the Dr mid death to stop and him continuing.

Documented cases taking oral assisted suicide drugs have the longest time of death at 137 hours in 2023 and 26 hours in 2024 in Oregon.

The medications used can paralyze a person, causing their lungs to fill with fluid, essentially drowning them within their own bodies. Imagine the horror of being unable to scream or beg for help if you suddenly change your mind.

Societies thrive when they value resilience, courage, and the collective ability to overcome challenges, when did this mentality of “quit, stop trying and die” start. Life is often painful and complicated, but the struggle itself is meaningful. Encouraging or normalizing death as something to celebrate undermines our most fundamental human instinct to survive, persevere, and find hope by doing the truly hard things. I would argue it already has created a culture of indifferent or numb to suicide and euthanasia, handling profound loss casually rather than with the seriousness and sensitivity it deserves.

To me, celebrating death signals deep cultural sickness. It shows that our society is losing respect for the real dignity and value inherent in every single life. Framing death as a celebratory milestone that we should all want is not progressive or enlightened, it’s so obviously misguided. This to me feel’s more like a DEI type project where we are being told that everyone should have death and no one should be turned down.

It signals that we are becoming a culture defined more by resignation than resilience, which is not progress; it's a huge decline and signals failures in the government and healthcare system of epic proportions.

Previous articles by Kelsi Sheren (Link).

Flawed Canadian media coverage of euthanasia (MAiD) for mental illness.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A study published by Toronto Metropolitan University on July 24, 2025 provided a critical analysis of 367 media stories between 2020 - 2024 on euthanasia (MAiD) in Canada. The study stated purpose is:

Our study aimed to capture how Canadian news media portrays MAID's impending expansion to include mental illness and frames the lives of people diagnosed with mental illness. Further, it aimed to evaluate the sociopolitical risks of current news reporting practices. Our team conducted a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of English-language Canadian news media articles from 2020 to 2024 (n=367) using Factiva to understand how MAID MD-SUMC and people diagnosed with mental illness are rhetorically represented within these texts. Outlining the evolution of MAID legislation in Canada and ongoing debates on whether or not MAiD should be considered a form of suicide, the contextual groundwork for the project is laid out.

The study found that MAiD for mental illness was primarily presented by the media as a political issue rather than a health issue, mental illness was described as suffering and individual stories of lived experience were very limited.

The study made the following recommendations:

To enhance the quality and inclusivity of MAID MD-SUMC reporting, four recommendations are made. First, it is recommended that MAID be reported on as a health issue rather than political news, to better engage the public in health matters. Second, it is recommended that Canadian media guidelines for MAiD be developed and that impacted communities be involved in the development of those guidelines. Third, emphasis is placed on the need to minimize harm. Avoid equating mental illness with suffering in reports about MAID MD-SUMC in order to prevent harmful stereotypes. Fourth, it is recommended that news outlets and reporters covering MAID consider the photographs they use more carefully, to avoid tropes.

I disagree with the recommendation that MAiD be reported as a health issue even though I agree that reporting MAiD as a political issue removes the human element. 

MAiD was legalized in Canada by creating an exception in the criminal code therefore it should be presented as a legal issue not a health issue.

I agree that media guidelines should be developed for MAiD but those guidelines should be similar to the guidelines for reporting on suicide.

There are a lot of people who have lived with mental illness and recovered. These are the stories that need to be reported. We need hope for recovery not killing people by euthanasia who are having difficulties recovering.

A Lawyer Witnessed Coercive End-of-Life Conversation

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I was reading through some articles and came across this one that was written by Lisa Feldstein that was published in the Pulse on June 27, 2025 titled: A Lawyer’s Inside View: Coercive End-of-Life Conversations.

The article explains an experience that Feldstein had while representing a family in a treatment dispute. Feldstein explains:

I attended a family meeting at a healthcare facility that was initiated because a patient had requested palliative care. There were many people in the room; we were all gowned and masked. The healthcare team arrived frazzled and late due to an emergency. I'm not certain they realized I am a lawyer, even though my name had been provided and the patient had consented in writing to my presence...

The patient, while not dying, is seriously ill. They had been asking about removing their ventilator (they don't need it continuously but would slowly die if it were removed). The patient is clinically depressed and clearly struggling. Unfortunately, the depression is hindering their ability to engage in activities that could improve their physical condition.

Feldstein explains that one physician was reasonable and offers treatment with the hope of improvement over a three month period whereas the other physician responded this way:

However, the other physician conducted himself very differently and, in my view, crossed into coercive territory. Here are verbatim quotes from him:

“Are you saying three months now to get us to shut up? Or is this because you see it as a valid pathway forward? If that’s what you’re thinking I’d rather hear about it now... If that’s not the case, it would be important to say that flat out.”

Doesn't want patient to “push it off if you’re not actually keeping it in the back of your mind” that things might get better.

Even after the patient agreed to a three month period to try to improve his condition, the physician was suggesting the patient have a MAiD consult anyway. To my knowledge, the patient had never formally requested MAiD.

This has become a common situation whereby the physician not only informs the patient that MAiD (euthanasia) is an option but also pushes the person towards being killed by euthanasia, even though the patient never requested euthanasia.

Feldstein concludes:

As a lawyer who was present to support a vulnerable family, I could not help but reflect on how far this situation felt from what was intended when Canada changed its laws. The Supreme Court’s decision in Carter was about empowering patients to make autonomous, voluntary choices at the end of life - free from suffering, but equally free from pressure. What I witnessed did not feel like a respectful conversation about palliative care. It felt like a system too ready to nudge someone toward giving up, rather than holding space for hope, support, and recovery. If we are not vigilant, we risk turning a right into an expectation, and losing sight of the compassion and caution that were meant to guide these deeply personal decisions.

Thank you Lisa Feldstein for sharing this story.

Most people are not aware that they may be pressured to accept MAiD when in fact they have no intention to even ask for MAiD. Having a family member or advocate is helpful in this situation.

British Columbia lacks oversight of it's euthanasia regime.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An investigative report by Terry O'Neill that was published by the BC Catholic on July 21, 2025 uncovers a shocking lack of oversight of the euthanasia (MAiD) law in British Columbia (BC). The investigative report was carried-out by O'Neill who uncovered the information by filing multiple freedom of information applications.

O'Neill begins his article by pointing out a position of the BC MAiD "oversight" committee:

At the same time, oversight should provide opportunities for education or warning depending on the severity of an infraction, as overly strict or severe use of referrals to law enforcement or professional colleges may discourage physicians or nurse practitioners from providing MAiD despite the high demand.

O'Neill writes:

A B.C. Catholic investigation has uncovered systemic failures in the province’s euthanasia program, including thousands of paperwork errors among the 2,767 MAiD (medical assistance in dying) deaths recorded in 2023, a lack of public reporting of violations, and an oversight unit led by the same health official responsible for delivering MAiD in B.C.

Leading critics of Canada’s permissive legalized-euthanasia regime call the findings “staggering” and “stunning,” saying the newly disclosed British Columbia government documents show a lack of effective oversight of (MAiD) in the province.

O'Neill then quotes me (Alex Schadenberg) as saying:

“It’s an actual life-and-death issue,”

“And what we’re seeing in B.C. is evidence that the scales have been tipped in favour of death.

Trudo Lemmens

O'Neill explains how he obtained the information and points out that the BC MAiD oversight committee has not published any public reports. O'Neill questions the oversight of the committee:

The unit is led by social worker Sara Bergen, whose biography states that she also heads the overall administration of MAiD in British Columbia. This dual role is, in itself, cause for concern, says Trudo Lemmens, professor and Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Toronto. Lemmens also serves on Ontario’s independent MAiD-oversight body, which operates under the auspices of the province’s chief coroner.

Lemmens told O'Neill that

“Somebody combining the organization of a practice with the oversight of a practice is unhealthy,”

O'Neill reports on his exchange with the BC Ministry of Health.

The Ministry of Health said in an email reply that the province’s MAiD Oversight Unit does not investigate wrongdoing but reviews documentation submitted by practitioners to ensure compliance with federal and provincial safeguards. While the unit may follow up to clarify missing or incomplete information, it does not determine misconduct or impose disciplinary action.

In rare cases, the ministry said, the unit may refer concerns to a health professional’s regulatory college or to law enforcement. Such referrals, it emphasized, “do not represent allegations of misconduct.” Police referrals are reserved for “the most serious compliance issues,” including significant deviations from eligibility or safeguard requirements, or cases where a deliberate breach of statutory obligations is suspected. Practitioners are not notified of referrals to police to protect the integrity of potential investigations.

The ministry also confirmed that Sara Bergen, who leads the MAiD Oversight Unit, serves concurrently as the provincial Director of MAiD. In that role, she oversees the strategic direction of MAiD policy and its implementation across the health system, including coordination with regulators, care providers, and service delivery agencies.

Remaining questions about the outcome of past referrals and details of disciplinary action, the ministry said, would need to be submitted as Freedom of Information requests.

O'Neill explains the MAiD oversight committee's response to infractions of the law.

Among the problematic information contained in the 28-page FOI release is a “briefing decision note,” written by an unidentified bureaucrat, which argues that the oversight unit should not be overly strict in reporting infractions of MAiD-delivery protocols to professional colleges or the police.

“… Overly strict or severe use of referrals … may discourage physicians or nurse practitioners from providing MAiD despite high demand,” states the November 2023 memo, addressed to Stephen Brown, deputy minister of health.

Brown approved the note’s concluding recommendation to establish a new “weighted criteria model” for judging practitioner infractions.

Christopher Lyon

O'Neill asks Christopher Lyon, a Canadian who teaches at UK’s University of York to respond. Lyon's comments:

“This is staggering,”

He said the memo essentially gives permission to “Unlawfully kill someone, but we won’t enforce it because it might discourage practitioners from playing loose with the law.”

Lyon said the province should be “very concerned” about what’s driving an apparent high demand for euthanasia rather than working out ways to address it.

Trudo Lemmons also responded to O'Neill with shock.

Lemmens too was shocked by the bureaucrat’s reasoning that MAiD is too popular to worry about rules. “Indeed, [it’s] stunning to state that so explicitly.”

O'Neill outlines the data:

The FOI document also contains a spreadsheet showing that, in 2023 alone, the oversight unit found 2,833 “reporting issues” and “completion errors” in the paperwork for 2,767 MAiD deaths and for 1,041 cases in which MAiD was applied for but not completed.

Nevertheless, since 2018, the unit has made only 22 referrals to regulatory bodies for possible disciplinary action and just two referrals to law enforcement for potential criminal charges, according to an unattributed declaration appended to the end of the FOI document. The statement concludes by saying the referrals “represent less than 0.2 per cent of the total number of cases of MAiD reviewed by the unit.”

Isabel Grant

O'Neill spoke to Isabel Grant, a law professor at the University of British Columbia who responds:

“It was alarming to read about the error rate in MAiD assessments in B.C.,” Grant said in an emailed statement. “Looking at only one indicator—errors around the eligibility requirements—we see an error rate of 4.9 per cent. When we are talking about close to 3,000 deaths, that is a very high number.”

Grant said that when the cost of a mistake is a potential wrongful death, society should not tolerate such a high error rate. “Couple this with the concern raised in the report that we cannot have an ‘overly strict’ referral to law enforcement or professional colleges … [and] we can see the approach of the British Columbia government to MAiD deaths—err on the side of making MAiD accessible, not on the side of compliance with the Criminal Code,” she said.

The government’s approach is especially troubling, Grant said, considering “we are talking about exemptions from Canada’s murder and aiding-suicide laws.”

O'Neill examined public records and found no records related to concerns with MAiD in BC:

The B.C. Catholic examined seven years’ worth of public disciplinary records of the College of Pharmacists of B.C., the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C., and the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives and was unable to find any record of disciplinary action related to MAiD. Likewise, there are no public records of any criminal charges related to a professional’s handling of MAiD.

Curiously, there is no public record of the lone disciplinary case for which the FOI papers provided any detail. The case is described in a three-page “Ministry of Health Decision Briefing Note” drafted in January 2021. It outlines the case of a B.C. doctor, whose name is not disclosed, who filed a report to the oversight unit that “failed to include a second assessment concluding eligibility, as required under federal law.”

As well, the briefing note reported that the oversight unit “also identified additional issues with the physician’s documentation of this case, which contravene the College of Physicians and Surgeons MAiD Practice Standards.”

“… The absence of a second independent opinion is exacerbated by an apparent disregard of an assessment of ineligibility,” the note states. It concludes by recommending that the oversight unit refer the case to both police and the doctors’ college “for appropriate investigation.” It is not known whether Deputy Minister Brown acted on the recommendation.

A spokesperson for the doctors’ college said that privacy concerns prevent it from releasing information about any referrals from the MAiD Oversight Unit.

A spokesperson for the nurses’ college said a B.C. Catholic request for follow-up information on disciplinary matters would be treated as an FOI application and be answered by the end of August.

However, the B.C. government did make that very information available in 2023 in response to an FOI request by Dr. Deborah Cook, a Member of the Order of Canada inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame last month.

The government response lists two B.C. referrals to law enforcement—one in 2019 and the other in 2021—related to breaches of Section 241.2 of the Criminal Code of Canada, which sets out the eligibility criteria and safeguards for medical assistance for MAiD. The document does not say which professions were involved in the criminal referrals.

In addition, the single-page document to Cook listed three referrals to the pharmacists’ college, two to the nurses’ college in 2019, and 15 to the doctors’ college from 2019 to November of 2023. The unit found that in four of the doctors’ cases and in the two nurses’ cases, the medical assessor had concluded that a patient was eligible for MAiD even though the assessment “did not find they met all individual eligibility criteria.

Alex Schadenberg

O'Neill ends his article by quoting from his conversation with me:

Schadenberg said the apparent lack of disciplinary action or criminal charges is further evidence that B.C.’s MAiD oversight is ineffectual, despite the Supreme Court of Canada’s Carter decision, which led to the 2016 legalization of MAiD, carrying a requirement for stringent oversight.

Schadenberg remarked that prosecuting such crimes will always be frustratingly difficult because “any witness on the other side is dead.”

Indeed, “it’s like the perfect crime,” he said. “You don’t get into trouble, and anybody who could effectively complain about it is dead.”

O'Neill has opened up a can of worms that has forced him to seek more information through freedom of information requests. The story will continue.

In October 2024 the Ontario MAiD review committee released a report that uncovered 428 non-compliant MAiD deaths from 2018 - 2023.

I got better. Support Bill C-218 to prevent MAiD for mental illness.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director,
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Tamara Jansen (MP - Cloverdale - Langley City) introduced private members Bill C-218 in the House of Commons to prevent (MAiD) euthanasia for mental illness alone by excluding mental illness from being considered a "grievous and irremediable medical condition" for the purposes of MAiD. This bill will prevent MAID for mental illness alone.

 

Sign our EPC petition: No MAiD for Mental Illness (Link).

Andrew Lawton (MP - Elgin - St Thomas - London South) is supporting Bill C-218 to prevent the implementation of MAiD for mental illness alone. In a recent video, Lawton explains that he experienced deep depression 15 years ago and nearly succeeded in dying by suicide. If MAiD for mental illness were permitted in 2011, he wouldn't be alive today.

When Canada expanded the euthanasia law in March 2021, one of the expansions in the law permitted euthanasia (MAiD) for a mental illness alone. At that time the government approved MAiD for mental illness alone with a two-year moratorium to provide time to prepare.

After two delays, the implementation of MAiD for mental illness alone is now scheduled for March 17, 2027. Bill C-218 will prevent the implementation of MAiD for mental illness alone.

For Bill C-218 to be successful, we will need stories from Canadians who have lived with, (or currently live with) mental health concerns and may have died by euthanasia (MAiD) if it had been available at that time. Contact us with your story at: info@epcc.ca

It is not easy to share stories, but the courage to share your suffering may lead to protection for other people.

A February 2023, Angus Reid Institute poll indicated that 31% of Canadians supported euthanasia for mental illness alone, with the highest support being in Quebec (36%) and the lowest support being in Saskatchewan (21%). A September 2023, Angus Reid Institute poll indicated that support for euthanasia for mental illness alone had dropped to 28% of Canadians.

More articles on Bill C-218

• Bill C-218 introduced to prevent euthanasia (MAiD) for mental illness alone (Link).
• Support Bill C-218. No MAiD for Mental Illness (Link). 
• I am so thankful to be alive. No MAiD for Mental Illness (Link).

HHS Found Systemic Disregard for Organ Donation Dead Donor rule.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Previous article: Organ Procurement Organization lapses threaten trust in transplant medicine (Link).

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent out the following media release on July 21, 2025 concerning organ donation and the organ transplant system in the United States.

I have been writing about issues related to organ donation for many years based on the fact that organ donors are not always dead before organs are retrieved. Death is sometimes caused by organ removal rather than organs being removed from a dead person.

In 2023, an effort to legitimize harvesting organs from living people was prevented when the Uniform Law Commission stopped the effort to revise the UDDA. The revision to the UDDA was designed to give legal cover when organs are taken from people who have not yet died but have an irreversible condition.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition supports the dead donor rule.

Health and Human Services examined 351 organ donation approvals and determined that in 103 of the cases the dead donor rule was likely violated.

Link to the Health and Human Services media release (Link).

HHS Finds Systemic Disregard for Sanctity of Life in Organ Transplant System

Secretary Kennedy Threatens Closure of Deficient Organ Procurement Organization

WASHINGTON—July 21, 2025— The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the leadership of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. today announced a major initiative to begin reforming the organ transplant system following an investigation by its Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) that revealed disturbing practices by a major organ procurement organization.

“Our findings show that hospitals allowed the organ procurement process to begin when patients showed signs of life, and this is horrifying,” Secretary Kennedy said. “The organ procurement organizations that coordinate access to transplants will be held accountable. The entire system must be fixed to ensure that every potential donor’s life is treated with the sanctity it deserves.”

HRSA directed the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) to reopen a disturbing case involving potentially preventable harm to a neurologically injured patient by the federally-funded organ procurement organization (OPO) serving Kentucky, southwest Ohio, and part of West Virginia. Under the Biden administration, the OPTN’s Membership and Professional Standards Committee closed the same case without action.

Under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HRSA demanded a thorough, independent review of the OPO’s conduct and the treatment of vulnerable patients under its care. HRSA’s independent investigation revealed clear negligence after the previous OPTN Board of Directors claimed to find no major concerns in their internal review.

HRSA examined 351 cases where organ donation was authorized, but ultimately not completed. It found:

• 103 cases (29.3%) showed concerning features, including 73 patients with neurological signs incompatible with organ donation.
• At least 28 patients may not have been deceased at the time organ procurement was initiated—raising serious ethical and legal questions.
• Evidence pointed to poor neurologic assessments, lack of coordination with medical teams, questionable consent practices, and misclassification of causes of death, particularly in overdose cases.

Vulnerabilities were highest in smaller and rural hospitals, indicating systemic gaps in oversight and accountability. In response to these findings, HRSA has mandated strict corrective actions for the OPO, and system-level changes to safeguard potential organ donors nationally. The OPO must conduct a full root cause analysis of its failure to follow internal protocols—including noncompliance with the five-minute observation rule after the patient’s death—and develop clear, enforceable policies to define donor eligibility criteria. Additionally, it must adopt a formal procedure allowing any staff member to halt a donation process if patient safety concerns arise.

Secretary Kennedy will decertify the OPO if it fails to comply with these corrective action requirements [PDF].

HRSA also took action to make sure that patients across the country will be safer when donating organs by directing the OPTN to improve safeguards and monitoring at the national level. Under HRSA’s directive, data about any safety-related stoppages of organ donation called for by families, hospitals, or OPO staff must be reported to regulators, and the OPTN must update policies to strengthen organ procurement safety and provide accurate, complete information about the donation process to families and hospitals.

These findings from HHS confirm what the Trump administration has long warned: entrenched bureaucracies, outdated systems, and reckless disregard for human life have failed to protect our most vulnerable citizens. Under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS is restoring integrity and transparency to organ procurement and transplant policy by putting patients’ lives first. These reforms are essential to restoring trust, ensuring informed consent, and protecting the rights and dignity of prospective donors and their families.

HHS recognizes House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie’s (KY-02) bipartisan work to improve the organ transplant system and looks forward to working with him and other issue-area champions in Congress to deliver reforms.

More articles about this topic:

• Euthanasia turning suicidal people into 'Kill and Harvest' natural resource (Link). 
• Let's not get rid of the Dead Donor rule (Link).
• No to Killing for Organs (Link).
• Canada leads the world in organ donation after euthanasia (Link).

Organ-Procurement Organization Lapses Threaten Trust in Transplant Medicine

This article was published by National Review online on July 23, 2025.

By Wesley J Smith

The “dead donor rule” is the cement that binds the public’s trust in organ transplant medicine. Under the DDR (other than in living donations, such as of one kidney) organs cannot be procured unless donors, in the words of the Munchkins, are not be merely dead but really most sincerely dead.

There are two means of declaring death. Let’s call the first “heart death,” that is an irreversible cessation of all cardio/pulmonary function. The other is popularly known as “brain death,” (death declared by neurological criteria) in which function in the whole brain and each of its constituent parts have irreversibly ceased. The key word in both means of declaring death is “irreversible.”

But something appears to have gone badly off the rails in the field of procuring organs after heart death. A long New York Times expose found cases of patients who were clearly alive when organ procurement began. At the same time, a very disturbing report by the Department of Health and Human Services contained similar findings.

First, the NYT. From “A Push for More Organ Transplants Is Putting Donors at Risk”:

Last spring at a small Alabama hospital, a team of transplant surgeons prepared to cut into Misty Hawkins. . . . Days earlier, she had been a vibrant 42-year-old with a playful sense of humor and a love for the Thunder Beach Motorcycle Rally. But after Ms. Hawkins choked while eating and fell into a coma, her mother decided to take her off life support and donate her organs. She was removed from a ventilator and, after 103 minutes, declared dead.

A surgeon made an incision in her chest and sawed through her breastbone. That’s when the doctors discovered her heart was beating. She appeared to be breathing. They were slicing into Ms. Hawkins while she was alive.

The horror! Why are such awful things happening?

In recent years, as the system has pushed to increase transplants, a growing number of patients have endured premature or bungled attempts to retrieve their organs. Though Ms. Hawkins’s case is an extreme example of what can go wrong, a New York Times examination revealed a pattern of rushed decision-making that has prioritized the need for more organs over the safety of potential donors.

In New Mexico, a woman was subjected to days of preparation for donation, even after her family said that she seemed to be regaining consciousness, which she eventually did. In Florida, a man cried and bit on his breathing tube but was still withdrawn from life support. In West Virginia, doctors were appalled when coordinators asked a paralyzed man coming off sedatives in an operating room for consent to remove his organs.

These examples are cases of procurement after planned “heart death” under an approach known as the Pittsburgh Protocol. First, life support is removed. After the patient’s heart stops, there is supposed to be a waiting period to ensure irreversibility — three or five minutes. Only then can the procurement begin. If the patient does not die, he or she is returned to the ward.

This system works only if the absence of physiological signs of life are accurately identified. But the push for organs has apparently grown so intense that corners may be being cut, endangering still-living patients and treating them as so many organ farms:

The Times found that some organ procurement organizations [OPO] — the nonprofits in each state that have federal contracts to coordinate transplants — are aggressively pursuing circulatory death donors and pushing families and doctors toward surgery. Hospitals are responsible for patients up to the moment of death, but some are allowing procurement organizations to influence treatment decisions.

Fifty-five medical workers in 19 states told The Times they had witnessed at least one disturbing case of donation after circulatory death.

Workers in several states said they had seen coordinators persuading hospital clinicians to administer morphine, propofol and other drugs to hasten the death of potential donors.

Hastening death is strictly forbidden by the dead donor rule. Any such advocacy should result in job terminations, and if actually done, criminal prosecutions.

HHS has also issued a harrowing report about the same seeming crisis involving one OPO. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) revealed disturbing lapses — apparently including cases of inaccurately determined brain death. From the press release, “HHS Finds Systematic Disregard for Sanctity of Human Life in Organ Transplant Medicine:”

HRSA examined 351 cases where organ donation was authorized, but ultimately not completed. It found:

• 103 cases (29.3%) showed concerning features, including 73 patients with neurological signs incompatible with organ donation.

• At least 28 patients may not have been deceased at the time organ procurement was initiated—raising serious ethical and legal questions.

• Evidence pointed to poor neurologic assessments, lack of coordination with medical teams, questionable consent practices, and misclassification of causes of death, particularly in overdose cases.

Yikes!

HHS is demanding that the OPO reform its practices:

Vulnerabilities were highest in smaller and rural hospitals, indicating systemic gaps in oversight and accountability. In response to these findings, HRSA has mandated strict corrective actions for the OPO, and system-level changes to safeguard potential organ donors nationally. The OPO must conduct a full root cause analysis of its failure to follow internal protocols—including noncompliance with the five-minute observation rule after the patient’s death—and develop clear, enforceable policies to define donor eligibility criteria. Additionally, it must adopt a formal procedure allowing any staff member to halt a donation process if patient safety concerns arise.

Indeed. Uniformity of medical approach — both in heart- and brain-death cases — is often lacking. Time for that to change all across the country!

This isn’t the first such warning about the potential perils of the Pittsburgh Protocol. For example, I posted this piece issuing a similar alarm in 2009.

I have worried often that there is a temptation to treat organ donor patients — who are subjects as long as they are alive — as objects once they are seen as dying, toward the perceived greater good of saving the lives of people who need organs. That can’t be allowed to happen. It is not only wrong, but from a purely utilitarian perspective, if people lose faith in the donation system, the number of available organs will decline as fewer people sign up to donate. In such a circumstance, recipients will become the primary victims of popular distrust.

Washington State Ceases Publishing Legally Required Annual Assisted Suicide Reports

This article was published by National Review online on July 20, 2025.

By Wesley Smith

The legalization law requires annual reports to be issued by the state to promote transparency. Well, from now on, opaqueness will be the order of the day. From the Medical Futility blog, by pro-assisted-suicide activist Thaddeus Mason Pope (whose blog is a reliable source of information on these issues):

Like almost all other aid-in-dying jurisdictions, the Washington State statute requires the “department of health shall generate and make available to the public an annual statistical report of information collected.” In response, the Washington DOH dutifully published 15 reports between 2009 and 2023.

But because of funding cuts, the DOH announced that the 2023 report was its last. There will be no more reports on how many patients are using MAID in Washington. No more demographic information about these patients.

Some states are slow in publishing their data. For example, we have yet to see a report from New Mexico even though the law was enacted in 2021. Other states have not published any data for over a year or more. But only Montana has never even promised to provide public data. Now Washington will similarly provide no public data.

Just remember: when activists tell you they want strict controls on assisted suicide to induce you to go along, they don’t mean it. Their goal is to effectuate wide-open euthanasia through incrementalism — a tactic that begins almost as soon as the laws go into effect.

But many people don’t seem to care much about that, perhaps preferring a comfortable pretense to grappling with the inevitable consequences that flow from such a radical change in law and morality.

Society Should Treat Disabled People Like My Cousin Treats Me And "It"

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader
Meghan is an instructor at E4 - University of Texas (Austin) and an EPC-USA board member.

In early June I was with a group of protesters at a Massachusetts C&C lobby day and a death doula cited reasons for why someone might want “aid in dying.” In addition to various other motivations, she approvingly cited, “I don’t want to be a burden,” which elicited murmurs of assent from the crowd. That statement was obnoxious, both in terms of its reinforcement of our culture’s attitude that people with significant medical needs are “burdens” and the speaker’s privileged ignorance that that’s what she was doing.

Compassion and Choices’s employee Dan Diaz said something similar when he asserted:

“If I find myself in a situation where I can’t go to the bathroom on my own, where someone has to change my diapers, where I can’t feed myself, where I can’t care for the people around me, where other people have to move me around to keep me from having bedsores, is that really living?”  

Whatever the context of that quote, these are things that many disabled people without terminal illnesses experience every day. Disabled people trying to live with dignity don’t need people like Dan Diaz implying that they are not alive.

As I’ve indicated, I think that there’s a good chance that the death doula and Dan Diaz didn’t understand that their statements were ableist. In contrast, I think a willfully hateful statement about “MAiD” can be found on the blog of formerly closeted white supremicist Richard Hanania. In his blog post “Canadian Euthanasia As Moral Progress,” Hanania writes: 

“One could just as easily say that people who want to kill themselves after becoming disabled are seeing things more objectively, and when they accept their condition they’re coping and living under a kind of false consciousness. I’m pretty sure I would want to kill myself if I was ever paralyzed, and I grant it’s possible that maybe I would change my mind after a while. But I wouldn’t want to become reconciled to living with such a condition. The idea that I might accept it would for me be even more reason to commit suicide, lest I get used to accepting a defective version of myself. I’m sure Raikin and many others feel differently, and would want to hang around in a vegetative state and burden everyone else in their lives as long as possible.”

Wow, that’s pretty vicious. Why doesn’t Hanania just replace that blog post with the text of Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens? 

I understand that in contrast to Hanania, the death doula and Dan Diaz’s statements occurred in the context of advocacy for the Oregon model. Both Diaz and the death doula likely experienced their statements as expressions of sympathy for terminally ill people. I doubt that either Dan Diaz or the death doula are closeted white supremacists, as Hanania was. Nevertheless, all three people’s rhetoric draws on the ableist trope that being a “burden” makes killing yourself a commendable act. That’s the cultural and historical milieu of “MAiD,” regardless of individual context or intent.

As I consider these ableist statements, my mind contrasts them with the love I receive from my sweet older cousin Amy, who cares for me like an older sister. For instance, Amy has stood by me during my bouts of severe mental illness, even when that process wasn’t particularly convenient or fun. 

One of the things I most appreciate are Amy’s expressions of affection for my cat Lucy, even though she loathes cats. When Amy flew to Texas to help me during my manic episode in 2019, she took care of Lucy while I was in the hospital, and when Amy picked me up from the hospital, she remarked, “I pet It.” “It? You mean Lucy?” I asked. “Yes,” she said. “I thought It might be lonely, so I petted It on the head, and I said, ‘I think you’re disgusting but Meghan loves you so I guess I have to pet you.’” So now Lucy’s nickname is “It.” About a month ago I was talking to Amy on FaceTime and I jokingly showed her “It” sleeping on the porch. I asked her what she hated about cats. “I hate the way they rub up against your legs, I hate the way they cram themselves into small spaces, I hate the way they jump in your lap & turn around looking for a place to lie down-Yeah, I pretty much hate everything about It, but I know you love It, so I guess I have to accept It.” 

LOL.

I know very many Oregon model proponents would gladly fly across the country to take care of a sick loved one’s “It.” And obviously Amy wasn’t caring for me while I was dying. But unfortunately the Oregon model is still linked to the idea that maybe people should kill themselves because caregivers having to do things they hate is a pain in the head.  This ideology is poisonous for disabled people, as illustrated by situations like Canada’s “MAiD”  program and the high rate of suicide among people with disabilities.

Living in a culture where disabled people are treated as “burdens” makes it more difficult to cope with systemic ableism, overwhelming medical needs or both. In contrast, I think the way Amy treats me and “It” models disability liberation. Sometimes care work is very uncomfortable or painful. But true compassion and justice means that we don’t abandon disabled or dying people, even if we must change their diapers. Or visit them in the hospital. Or take care of their disgusting cats. 

Previous articles by Meghan Schrader (Link).