When a nightmare situation turns into the subject of a Health and Human Services Department investigation, people pay attention. Such is the case with misconduct in the nation’s organ transplant system.

Under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health Resources and Services Administration directed the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to investigate a Kentucky-based organ procurement organization and found “systemic disregard for the sanctity of life,” per the report’s title.

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The investigation was motivated in part by the case of Anthony Thomas Hoover II, who nearly had his organs removed while still alive after a drug overdose. After the Biden-era OPTN found no discrepancies and concluded Hoover’s case without action, the current administration “demanded a thorough, independent review of the OPO’s conduct.” In examining instances of authorized-but-uncompleted organ donation, the HRSA found sufficient evidence pointing to “poor neurologic assessments, lack of coordination with medical teams, questionable consent practices, and misclassification of causes of death, particularly in overdose cases.”

Hoover’s case is extreme but not solitary. The release of the HHS report comes at a time when critical coverage of the organ transplant system has seen an uptick. At least a month before, the New York Times researched the matter and found several similar instances. Such buildup displays what the HHS report warns against: “entrenched bureaucracies, outdated systems, and reckless disregard for human life.”

Nor is the reality of a corrupted organ transplant system an isolated event. The “reckless disregard” so mentioned by the HHS is connected to various standard practices today. Physician-assisted suicide, also known as “medical aid in dying,” is the most closely related, as its messaging undermines natural death and presents life as a burden. Widespread acceptance grows as states develop laws in favor of assisted suicide.

The major predecessor in the visible anti-life shift is abortion, more prominent and more beloved in the present culture. It declares life expendable and the taking of a life agreeable for the sake of an adjacent obstacle.

Of its various forms, the abortion pill is the most rampant and frequent, especially since Biden- and Obama-era rules decreased barriers both to access and administration of the pills. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute boasts that “63% of all abortions in the formal health care system” result from the abortion pill, “an increase from 2020, when medication abortions accounted for 53% of all abortions.” 

LAWSUIT ARGUES DISCRIMINATORY NATURE OF ASSISTED SUICIDE

But the HHS’s endeavor to reform the organ transplant system impresses optimism against otherwise pro-death trends. A willingness to call out the system for malpractice, and to make “disregard for human life” a primary complaint, sets a principle for its later investigations to heed.

Earlier in the year, Food and Drug Administration officials committed to reviewing the “safety” of the abortion pill. The FDA, and Kennedy generally, is committed likewise to “root cause” and “informed consent” bases for future guidelines. These should translate to significant pro-life improvements in federal policy, beginning, it seems, with organ donation.