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In Israel, Potential Organ Donors Could Jump the Queue
laron writes "In Israel, a new law is in the making: Holders of donor cards and their families would get preference if they should need an organ for themselves. Apparently this initiative faces resistance from Orthodox rabbis, who hold that organ donation is against religious law. Jacob Lavee, director of the heart transplant unit at Israel's Sheba Medical Center, and one of the draftees of this new law, hopes that a broader pool of organs will ultimately benefit everyone, but acknowledges that one of his primary motivations is 'to prevent free riders.' (Apparently receiving an organ is OK under religious law.)"
Organ donation is NOT always against Jewish law (Halacha). In fact there is almost always a way that it is totally fine and even further, there are interpretations that suggest that not being an organ donor is a violation of Halacha! Please see http://hods.org/ for a very good observant Jewish organization that seeks to make more orthodox Jews organ donors.
Most Orthodox Rabbis are not against organ transplants. They disagree about the determination of death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_donation_in_Jewish_law
I realize you meant that as a joke, but in case anyone was curious it is okay under Jewish law (as interpreted by most Jews, reform conservative and most orthodox) to receive something along those lines. For the most part, if it's for medical purposes, pork is fine. Saving a life takes precedence here.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
I posted this before, but here it is again:
Jews do not believe it's wrong to donate. What they believe is that, as long as a persons heart is beating they are alive.
Meaning: They believe it's wrong to murder someone to harvest organs.
Others believe that after brain death the person is dead, and it's not murder.
The argument is not over organ donation, which even the strictest rabbi agrees with.
The argument is over the definition of death, since most organ donation are done after brain, but not cardiac, death.
-Ariel
I don't know whether the laws over there (I'm european) are so screwed up that doctors would actually get to choose wheter to harvest someone's organs or not, but I really hope you've got it all completely wrong. In my country, the law says that EVERYONE is an organ donor unless you actively opt-out. Families do get to refuse, I think. But the point is no doctors' god complex will have ANYTHING to do with it (I'm a doctor BTW, you insensitive clod!). And even on the RARE cases that fall in a legal grey area, the hospital's ethics commitee will be summoned to discuss the matter and come up with the best possible solution for all parties involved. I don't know wether there a single doctor has the legal power to make such decisions (and if they do, wether they actually use that power), but that kind of worries me. Needless to say, with everyone being a potential donor, we aren't nearly as organ-lacking over here are you seem to be over there. By the way, the organs waiting list system over here IS strictly rational, taking into consideration every possible little thing you could ever think of. So when a person who drank his way up to almost death get a new liver, you can be absolutely sure that he didn't deprive a "more deserving" person of a liver. Again, this might also be possible due to there being more organs available.