Yes, if it will enable the deduction and not incur any IRA penalty (per your tax adviser), you should take the distribution. If you leave the $50k in the IRA, the beneficiaries will eventually pay tax at ordinary income rates on the $50k and all earnings from it. If you invest the $50k outside the IRA, taxes will be owed only on the earnings, likely at favorable rates for qualified dividends and long-term capital gains; the latter (capital gains) will be deferred anyway until investments are sold (and this deferral can be even longer because there are no RMDs). Thus, whatever the beneficiaries' tax brackets over time, they will generally keep more of the money if it's outside the IRA -- barring something like a heavy bond allocation that incurs non-deferred ordinary-income taxation of interest.

Yes, if it will enable the deduction and not incur any IRA penalty (per your tax adviser), you should take the distribution. If you leave the $50k in the IRA, the beneficiaries will eventually pay tax at ordinary income rates on the $50k and all earnings from it. If you invest the $50k outside the IRA, taxes will be owed only on the earnings, likely at favorable rates for qualified dividends and long-term capital gains; the latter (capital gains) will be deferred anyway until investments are sold (and this deferral can be even longer because there are no RMDs). Thus, whatever the beneficiaries' tax brackets over time, they will generally keep more of the money if it's outside the IRA -- barring something like a heavy bond allocation that incurs non-deferred ordinary-income taxation of interest.

EDIT: JTP points out that an even more favorable option is a Roth IRA conversion. In this case, the $50k and its earnings would be tax-free.