April 20, 2025
end of life issues

Belgian surgeons harvest organs after euthanasia

Michael Cook

Not just a bright idea

How often is this going on in Belgium and
the Netherlands? Bioethics blogger Wesley Smith drew our attention to a
conference report by Belgian transplant surgeons about organ procurement after
euthanasia. As the doctors, from Antwerp University Hospital explained in the
2006 World Transplant Congress (in a section called “economics”), they killed a
consenting 46-year-old woman with a neurological condition and took her liver, two kidneys and islets.

In a 2008 report, the doctors explained
that three patients had been euthanased between 2005 and 2007:

Patients were between 43-50 y old, all suffering from
a debilitating neurological disease, either after severe CVA or primary
progressive multiple sclerosis. They were totally dependent on third parties
for personal care and without quality of life. Written informed consent about
the procedure, after extensive explanation, was given by the patient and their
relatives.

At the time of writing the article, the
doctors were enthusiastic about the potential for organ donation in countries where
euthanasia is legal:

The potential in Belgium (and the Netherlands) could
be substantial. According to the Federal Control and Evaluation Committee Euthanasia
(Year Rapport 2006) the number patients with debilitating neurological disease
that had their request for euthanasia granted was 22/235 (2003), 27/349 (2004)
and 16/393 (2005).

The curious thing about this is how little
publicity this has received, even though the Belgian doctors published their achievement
in the world’s leading journal of transplant surgery. ~ Transplantation,
July 15, 2006;  Transplantation
July 27, 2008



Michael Cook
Belgium
euthanasia
transplant surgery

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