'Death by organ donation': Doctors raise possibility of retrieving organs from MAID patients while they are still alive

Current law prohibits it, due to the long-standing dead donor rule, or DDR, which holds that people must be dead before organs can be removed (the “Death Requirement”) and that doctors must not kill a person by means of procuring his or her organs (the “Don’t Kill Rule”).

However, the authors of a new paper published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine say the growing acceptance of voluntary euthanasia complicates the dead donor rule, because people are knowingly consenting to death, and euthanasia laws sanction killing by physicians in “circumscribed situations.” ---More... 

A new bioethics paper proposes allowing doctors to remove organs from assisted suicide patients before they are legally dead, arguing it could improve transplant outcomes: https://t.co/KgecRQK7pE

The Justice Centre has warned that assisted suicide is out of control in Canada and… pic.twitter.com/cAPR1pVJBR

— Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (@JCCFCanada)July 23, 2026

A new bioethics paper proposes allowing doctors to remove organs from assisted suicide patients before they are legally dead, arguing it could improve transplant outcomes: https://nationalpost.com/news/death-by-organ-donation-for-maid-patients

The Justice Centre has warned that assisted suicide is out of control in Canada and needs proper safeguards: https://jccf.ca/reports-9/