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 in103 cases 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).