Normally, in such (awful) cases, euthanasia is followed by organ-harvesting. The patient enters a hospital, is killed quickly by a lethal drug cocktail, wheeled into an adjoining surgical suite, and then the organs are procured in the usual manner from the dead donor. But if this report is correct, the girl was kept alive under sedation for 36 hours, opened up, and her organs examined! That’s monstrous. And I have to wonder whether some of the organs were removed before she was dispatched. I think that question needs to be asked too. …

And even if she wasn’t live-harvested, this case clearly crossed a very serious ethical line. Keeping her alive for a day and a half — with her body cut open — wasn’t for her benefit. The organ-transplant community should be having a fit. Donors are never to be treated as anything less than fully equal patients.

[We’re part of the organ-transplant community, and I *am* having a fit. This is utterly appalling. I’ll see if we can’t get Wesley on the Drew Mariani Show today or tomorrow to discuss this further. — Ed

UPDATE: Wesley has updated his post after learning that the examination did not involve surgery. — Ed]]