now a new, updated canadian guideline sets out criteria under which it could be permissible to allow people choosing a medically assisted death to gift their organs to a relative or close friend, an option some ethicists fear will unduly push people with a chronic disease or disability whose natural death isn’t “reasonably foreseeable” to follow through with assisted suicide even if they have a change of heart, knowing a loved one is waiting for their organs.
stories have been accumulating of people considering maid primarily because of poverty, or a lack of adequate health care or social supports . people who already feel they’re a burden to their family “may be unduly influenced to opt for maid,” believing that at least their organs will be useful to others, said university of toronto bioethicist trudo lemmens.
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but canadian maid providers have also recounted cases of people changing their minds about maid, but being too afraid to admit it to family. with the added pressure of organ donation, “patients with second thoughts may feel, ‘i’d better go through with this because people are waiting for my organs,” dr. lisa rosenbaum, an associate professor of medicine at harvard medical school once wrote in the new england journal of medicine .
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