Pick your cliche: Give them an inch and they will take a mile; in for a penny in for a pound, etc. In bioethics, there is never a permanent boundary beyond which the utilitarian impulse will not take them.

Now, advocacy is beginning to ask conscious patients who want to stop life-sustaining treatment for their organs. So far, this “non-heart beating cadaver donor” process has only been done with the profoundly cognitively disabled.  But now, that line is under assault.

In a medical community in which withdrawal of life sustaining measures in unconscious and in conscious ICU patients is accepted, where organ donation after death is common practice, and in which there is a shortage of organs for transplantation, there can be no moral objection to ask certain conscious ICU patients to donate their organs after death.

Although withdrawal of mechanical ventilation on request of the patient on the ICU is rare and therefore the number of organs that come available is limited, it is still well worth considering. We argue that there are no valid moral and legal objections against it; it is ethically feasible and practically possible to ask the patients for organ donation after death.

Well, here’s one: I can think of few things more dangerous to the weak and vulnerable than to allow people having trouble going on believe that their deaths have greater value than their lives.

IDIOM

        

         Give somebody an inch and they'll take a mile

something that you say which means that if you allow someone to behave badly at all, theywill start to behave very badly.

in for a penny (in for a pound)

something you say which means that since you have started something or are involved in it, you should complete the work although it has become more difficult or complicated than you had expected

KEY VOCABULARY

1.cliche-->adage/old saying

2.utilitarian-->functional

3.advocacy-->recommendation

4.cadaver-->corpse

5.feasible-->achievable

CONVERSATION QUESTIONS

1. What did you think when you read the headline?
2. What springs to mind when you hear the word 'euthanasia'?          
3. Do people have the right to choose when to die?
4. Would you be willing to donate your organs after you die?
5. What are the arguments for and against euthanasia?
6. Is there a difference between euthanasia and murder?
7. Would you accept a killer’s heart if you needed a heart transplant?
8. Do people in your country have a positive attitude towards transplants?

Read more:http://www.lifenews.com/2014/06/12/euthanasia-activists-want-to-harvest-organs-from-conscious-icu-patients/