Organ Donation beliefs in different Religions

Factual Questions
1

I’ve been wondering about this for a long time. My mother once got very upset during a conversation we were having about organ donation, she told me that the Catholic Chuch was against it. She has a number of problems and I can’t really believe what she says.

A JW once told me that she is against blood donation, but when asked about organ donation, I never got a straight answer.

In real life, I don’t know anyone from any other religions. Is the Catholic church against it ? What about JWs, Buddists, Muslims, Jewish people and the other religions that I haven’t mentioned. If they are against it, why ?

Thanks.

2

An Islamic opionion - seems to have been hotly debated at times… I had had the opinion that they were against the concept, but it seems that I was (am) wrong.

Here are the National Organ Donor Society’s list of the positions of various religious groups: http://www.nods.org/religious.html

Grim

3

The Catholic Church has no problems about organ donation.

I believe that Orthodox Jews have some issues, but I’ll leave it up to a Jew to explain them.

4

grimpixie, I checked out your Organ Donor Society’s site, very much expecting that my religion, Baha’i, would not be listed. Surprise, surprise, it was!

5

Judaism does not expressly forbid organ donation; in fact, they encourage it. The link goes to a Conservative website, but Reform Judaism has taken the same position, and there was nothing I found that said Orthodox Judaism is against it.

Robin

6

This is a pretty informative site:http://www.onelegacy.org/test/components/community/religiousviews.html#4

snip: Catholic Church:

7

The Fundamentalist Beheaders, of course, are striving for head transplants… so far, unsuccessfully and at considerable cost in terms of numbers of adherents.

8

A major concern among Orthodox Jews with regard to organ donation is the possibility of removing needed organs from a donor before halachic death has occured. As one is not allowed to murder someone to save his own life, there are serious complications that can arise from this.

In addition, the major poskim of the 70s and 80s were opposed to organ donation even if the organs were removed after halachic death occured because the survival rate for heart transplants (and the like) were so low, it was almost akin to killing the recipient. Since that is no longer the case, this factor may no longer be relevant.

In any event, I am neither a doctor, nor a rabbi. If you want to know what to do in such cases according to Orthodox Judaism, contact your local Orthodox rabbi.

Zev Steinhardt