Texans debate therapeutic privilege for ob-gyn doctorsby Xavier Symons | 25 Mar 2017 | A controversial bill protecting doctors against wrongful birth claims has passed the Texas Senate, garnering strong criticism from pro-choice groups.The Physician Liability Bill allows doctors to withhold information about fetal abnormalities or disabilities from mothers when the disclosure of the information is deemed harmful. This will in turn prevent parents from suing doctors for what is known as wrongful birth according to which the doctor can be held accountable for preventing parents from making an informed decision about whether to have the child.Pro-choice advocates argue that the bill is a veiled attempt to limit abortion rights.This bill places an unreasonable restriction on the constitutional right of a woman to make an informed decision about whether or not to have an abortion, said Margaret Johnson, a member of the League of Women Voters of Texas, after the bill cleared the Senate on Monday.De Paul University bioethicist Craig Klugman was similarly critical of the proposed law. The bill would permit doctors to purposefully mislead the patient with no regard for the patients autonomy or best interest in an attempt to make a particular decision favored by the physicianto choose against abortion, he wrote in a blog post.But Republican Senator Brandon Creighton, the sponsor of the bill, described the current legal situation as deeply disturbing, and said that he would fight to protect the value and dignity of every life including those born with disabilities.The bill will now be debated by Texass House of Representatives, where it is expected to meet strong resistance.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------CEBID - Centro de Estudos em Biodireito Canadian surgeons harvesting organs from euthanised patientsby Michael Cook | 25 Mar 2017 | Taking advantage of the countrys new law, Canadian transplant surgeons have harvested organs from dozens of euthanasia patients. According to the National Post, 26 people in Ontario who died by lethal injection have donated tissue or organs. This involved mostly corneas, skin, heart valves, bones and tendons.The National Posts report only covered Ontario. Bioethicists, Transplant Quebec and an ethics committee of the Quebec government in Quebec argued last year that euthanasia could be a good source of organs, so it is quite possible that similar procedures have been carried out in that province as well.If we accept people can make decisions to end life, and we accept the idea of cardiac death being sufficient for organ donation, this should be acceptable, Dr James Downar, of Dying with Dignity Canada, told the Post, to allay fears that patients could be pressured into donating organs.Oddly enough, this is a topic which did not emerge in discussions about euthanasia before the Supreme Court legalised it in 2015. An influential report by a Royal Society of Canada Expert Panel did not even mention it, for instance, nor the Supreme Courts decision in Carter vs Canada.Coordinating organ transplants with euthanised donors has been going on for several years in Belgium and the Netherlands. About 40 cases in the two countries have been reported. Last year Dutch physicians at the Maastricht University Medical Center