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However, death can take up to two to three hours, during which time vital organs like the heart and lungs are deteriorating from lack of blood flow and oxygen.

With assisted dying, organs can be retrieved much sooner, because the heart stops within two to three minutes of the lethal injection.

“There’s a lot riding on this,” Downar said. “If somebody has organs that would be appropriate to donate, you’ll never get better organs than you would by this process.”

It would be very important in these scenarios to make it very clear to people that they can change their mind at any time

However the intersection of assisted death and organ donation raises other ethical questions, said Chandler the law professor, including whether organ recipients who have moral or religious objections to euthanasia have a right to know that the organ being offered is coming from someone who chose an assisted death. Typically, the cause of death isn’t disclosed, including in cases of suicide, unless there’s a valid medical reason to do so.

“I’m torn between a sense of, is it any harm to let people know (the donor died by assisted death)? After all, if it really bothers them, there will be someone else who will benefit greatly from this donation,” Chandler said. “They will just bypass the person who objects, and go to the next.”

Still, the pool of organs would likely be relatively small. Most patients who request assisted dying have advanced cancer, which typically makes their organs unsuitable for transplant. However, organs can be retrieved from those suffering from neurological disorders, such as multiple sclerosis.

In Canada in 2014, more than 4,500 people were waiting for an organ, and 278 died waiting.

National Post

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the name of the journal in which Fortin and Allard published their work. The story has been updated.