A survey of religious attitudes towards organ donation and transplantation

Abstract

Questions regarding religious teachings on organ donation, particularly with respect to cadaver donation, are often raised. More often than not, however, religious constraints are more imagined than real. In the past few years, a number of authors and religious authorities from the major world religions have commented on many aspects of these questions. I have tried below to capture and encapsulate the essence of those discussions relating specifically to transplantation. The major monotheistic religions of the West (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), because of their shared origins, have similar conceptions of creation, of man’s relation to God, of the material and the spiritual, of the soul, of the essential sanctity of life and of death and eschatology. Although religious discourse, sources (canonical literature), justifications, examples used, emphases and lines of authority vary, all three religions in general support living organ donation, cadaver organ donation and the establishment of death using brain-death criteria. All three generally accept that the diagnosis of physical death is best left to the physician. Hinduism and Buddhism both encourage living and post mortem organ donation. However, the tradition of Shinto, even though linked to Buddhist rituals, has not been able to encourage the development of cadaver organ donation in Japan; this may be a problem also in other traditions.