HHS Warns Canada’s Assisted Suicide Organ Donation Pipeline Crosses Ethical Red Lines

HHS Warns Canada’s Assisted Suicide Organ Donation Pipeline Crosses Ethical Red Lines

Legal Insurrection readers may recall my post on Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program, noting that participant organs had been harvested for donation.

One of the donors was American, so one might think that Canada’s health program was revving up for organ-harvesting tourism.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed, either. The U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) leadership is now sharply criticizing Canada’s MAID program, which is now linked to organ donation, with one top official calling it a “strange new horror” and a cautionary example for other countries.
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U.S. Deputy HHS Secretary Jim O’Neill said that Canada’s permissive assisted‑suicide regime has “crossed ethical boundaries” by helping drive up organ donation rates from people who die via euthanasia.

O’Neill and Health Resources and Services Administration chief Thomas Engels have said that they are trying to revive trust in the American Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network after multiple troubling reports of organs nearly being harvested from live patients in several states, including Kentucky and New Jersey.

But O’Neill said that Canada’s program was uniquely problematic compared to even the most egregious stories in the U.S.

“We thought we’d seen all the possible horrors, you know, in America, and then Canada had this strange new horror that was really just shocking,” said O’Neill.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal published a paper in 2024 outlining a “substantial increase in deceased donation” in Quebec during the first five years of the MAID program.

‼️ BREAKING: US Department of Health and Human Services calls out MAiD

For “using their physician-assisted suicide program to bolster organ donation numbers."

Human organ harvesting.

“We thought we'd seen all the possible horrors, you know, in America, and then Canada had… pic.twitter.com/XwZSrUwssA

— Mario Zelaya (@mario4thenorth) January 12, 2026

The situation in Canada is so bad that courts are now getting involved. In one case, the family of a man from British Columbia who suffered from bipolar disorder and chronic back pain is suing the federal and provincial governments after he allegedly used a day pass from the hospital to end his life with medical assistance.

In a lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court, the man’s family claims the 52-year-old — known as JMM — fell into a group of people whose concurrent physical and mental illnesses leave them “vulnerable” under Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAiD) framework.

“JMM received approval for medical assistance in dying, but he subsequently expressed that he did not wish to proceed with the procedure and instead, he wished to pursue other treatments, including rehabilitation,” the claim reads.

“Regrettably, while receiving treatment at St. Paul’s Hospital for his incapacitating illness, JMM left the hospital on a day pass, visited a clinic in the afternoon, and died through the improper administration of MAiD.”

In another incident, an injunction application was filed the day before a 53-year-old Alberta woman known as NB was scheduled to end her life in a Vancouver clinic. The court concluded her situation appeared to be a primarily mental‑health condition that might be remediable.

Interestingly, NB was initially rejected for the program. She found a workaround when she contacted Ellen Wiebe, a doctor who works with Dying With Dignity Canada, who had previously boasted in a seminar for physicians working in assisted suicide about the time she treated a patient who did not qualify for the end-of-life service.

Legal Insurrection readers may recall Wiebe: I did an article on her death efforts in which she brags she has euthanized 400 people.

The court specially said she could not proceed in this case:

The injunction, granted to the woman’s common law partner, blocks Vancouver physician Ellen Wiebe, or any other medical professional, from “causing the death” of the woman within the next 30 days, The Guardian reports.

…In the British Columbia case, the injunction came after the woman’s partner filed a notice of civil claim alleging Wiebe negligently approved the procedure for a patient who does not legally qualify, and if she were to administer Maid, it would “constitute a battery of (the patient), wrongful death and, potentially, a criminal offence”.

In a possibly related story, Alberta residents are flocking to sign the petition for independence.

🚨NEW

MASSIVE LINEUPS IN ALBERTA TO PETITION FOR INDEPENDENCE

Massive lineups were documented all across Alberta yesterday

of people wanting to sign the official petition seeking Alberta's exit from Canada

This groundswell is going to catch EVERYONE off guard! pic.twitter.com/ReiNPywQdI

— Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@Tablesalt13) January 11, 2026

And residents in the 11 U.S. states that have legalized assisted suicide may want to make note of the developments in Canada.

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.