Donating Bodies to Science

[Ivellious]

So I just started a course in Human Anatomy with a lab that involves the use/examination of human cadavers, donated by that individual before they died. I understand that many religious groups around the world are opposed to the idea of "defiling" a dead person's body. In the brief lecture on history of anatomical study, it was explained that the Church in Europe heavily opposed the study of human bodies after death, and at first only allowed autopsies and dissections of human bodies that belonged to executed prisoners who were bound for Hell anyway. Obviously, the general stance in the developed world today seems to be alright with human body dissection for research and teaching purposes. We were told today in lab that we should be very sensitive when speaking about this lab in public, because some fundamentalist groups might take offense to what we do in lab.

so I was wondering, what are the Christian views on the matter? Is there a biblical opposition to using cadavers for medicine?

[Canuckster1127]

I don't have an issue with it. As far as I'm concerned when a person is dead the body is the shell in which they previously resided.

The traditional Christian view you refer to in Europe for many ties to the belief in the bodily resurrection. It's also a reason why burial is practiced instead of cremation by many. They saw it as prepratory to not intentionally damage the body so as to allow it to be ready for the resurrection.

It's not as prevelant a concern today as many branches of Christianity see bodily resurrection as something that either involves new bodies (this is covered in I Corinthians) and that any who have been buried at sea, cremated, dismembered etc. are not in danger of anything as God's power extends beyond those circumstances.

I can't summarize all the different major branches of Christianity in terms of where they stand formally. Many obviously are just uncomfortable with the thought for personal reasons and resist it in that capacity. Maybe other can chime in. In the Evangelical branch that I ministered in and performed funerals it wasn't something that would eleicit any warning or prohibitions from me, and neither was cremation.

[Danieltwotwenty]

If I can help another person after I am gone then I will happily donate my body, after all I am not my body and will no longer require it.


Dan

[MarcusOfLycia]

I'm signed up for organ donation after I die. Figure someone else can use them better than I'll be able to

[neo-x]

Ivel,

Bart is right, the traditional view held is that the body should be ready for Resurrection. As for your question, it is not bad or non-biblical at all although people might not prefer it for personal reasons.

[Bill McEnaney]

I'm signed up for organ donation after I die. Figure someone else can use them better than I'll be able to

Josh, if you're willing to donate your heart, please reconsider because I've a Catholic Family News article where a doctor told an interviewer that transplantable hearts need to come from living donors. I'll look for online evidence for that. But you can order a reprint of the article from CFN (http://www.cfnews.org).

Bill

[Ivellious]

I don't think the heart is typically a donated organ post-death. Usually the organ donor on your driver's license only applies if you die young or in good health (the organs aren't usually very useful if you die naturally at 80). I might be wrong on the heart though.

Donating your body to science is a bit different. Usually you sign up before you die and after you die and have a funeral service (if your family wishes), then your body is taken to the hospital and kept for the use of medical students and occasionally for research purposes. After 18-24 months your body is able to be cremated or returned to the family for burial.

[Danieltwotwenty]

I'm signed up for organ donation after I die. Figure someone else can use them better than I'll be able to

Josh, if you're willing to donate your heart, please reconsider because I've a Catholic Family News article where a doctor told an interviewer that transplantable hearts need to come from living donors. I'll look for online evidence for that. But you can order a reprint of the article from CFN (http://www.cfnews.org).

Bill

I couldn't find the article could you please link to the article, as far as i know of organ donation in my country is that the heart is taken from recently deceased people from car accidents etc.. I would hazard a guess that they would also harvest from brain dead accidents also where the body would still be alive. I see that there is no issue as the donors are infact dead and have no chance of resuscitation.


Dan

[Bill McEnaney]

I'm signed up for organ donation after I die. Figure someone else can use them better than I'll be able to

Josh, if you're willing to donate your heart, please reconsider because I've a Catholic Family News article where a doctor told an interviewer that transplantable hearts need to come from living donors. I'll look for online evidence for that. But you can order a reprint of the article from CFN (http://www.cfnews.org).

Bill

I couldn't find the article could you please link to the article, as far as i know of organ donation in my country is that the heart is taken from recently deceased people from car accidents etc.. I would hazard a guess that they would also harvest from brain dead accidents also where the body would still be alive. I see that there is no issue as the donors are infact dead and have no chance of resuscitation.


Dan

Dan, I didn't expect the article to be at CFN's website because CFN usually sells reprints. Here's an article where a nurse seems to disagree with what the doctor said in the CFN interview (http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/ ... ecnum=4525). The linked article is a long one by a nurse, but I think it's full of important information.

[Bill McEnaney]

Here's the interview I mentioned two posts ago, the one about heart transplants.

http://www.cfnews.org/ByrneInterview.htm

[Danieltwotwenty]

I can see the point in the article but I will still be an organ donor because if I ever get into a state that I might not wake up from I would rather donate my organs to give life to someone else rather than take up a bed in a hospital for who knows how long.

I don't see an issue with the actual practise but I think the issue should be with making people aware of what exactly they are signing up for, maybe the lady with the shot to the head might not have been a donor if she knew what could happen or maybe she still would be.

Dan

[Bill McEnaney]

I can see the point in the article but I will still be an organ donor because if I ever get into a state that I might not wake up from I would rather donate my organs to give life to someone else rather than take up a bed in a hospital for who knows how long.

Organ donation is good, Dan, but I can't condone any organ-taking that would kill the organ donor.

[Danieltwotwenty]

I can see the point in the article but I will still be an organ donor because if I ever get into a state that I might not wake up from I would rather donate my organs to give life to someone else rather than take up a bed in a hospital for who knows how long.

Organ donation is good, Dan, but I can't condone any organ-taking that would kill the organ donor.

If there is no chance for survival, if they unplug a machine then your dead what life is really in that body?


Dan

[MarcusOfLycia]

That's where having a Will comes in. I'll specify the conditions I'm willing to donate organs under. At this point it will probably only be if I am already dead.

[Bill McEnaney]

If there is no chance for survival, if they unplug a machine then your dead what life is really in that body?

Dan. sometimes it's all right to let a patient die naturally when no one can do anything for him, when his there's no hope for him. I don't see anything wrong with unplugging life support when the patient's body can't do anything on its own or when unplugging the machines is only a way to accept the patient's inevitable death. I think it's all right to let transplant surgeons take transplantable organs from the corpse of someone who died only moments ago. But Pope John Paul II defined murder as deliberately killing an innocent human being. If that definition is correct, transplant surgeons commit murder when they knowingly harvest organs from living donors. If I were a transplant surgeon, I wouldn't say, "All right, everybody, Mrs. Brown is almost dead. So let's take her heart now. We need to hurry, or it'll be useless." If I did that, I'd treat her as a mere tool, a mere commodity, not as an infinitely valuable person God created. Even if she already knew that she needed to be living when they took her heart from her body, that would still be murder, in my opinion, whether she signed her donor card or not.

For me, euthanasia, another kind of murder, is morally repugnant partly because it assumes that death annihilates us. Why do I think the assume that? Because they say death will end the patient's suffering. I can agree with them in one respect because I'm a Thomist, and Thomists believe that a person's soul is only part of him. I'm not my soul. But if my soul goes to hell, it'll suffer there. If I'm damned, I'll suffer in hell because Christ will put me together again when He returns: He'll resurrect my body and re-ensoul it.

As a Catholic, I can't assume that someone will go to heaven merely because he accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior? I can't do that partly because in one of his two letters in the RSV, St. John distinguishes between mortal sins and non-mortal ones. Some people tell me that a mortal sin is any sin that causes physical death. The trouble is that even if someone here earth kills you or me, St. John's ancient readers already knew that human physical death came into the world because Adam and Eve fell. Why would he point out a difference between fatal sins and nonfatal ones if his readers already knew that even they died of natural causes, would still do that because Adam and Eve sinned? Remember what St. Paul says when he compares our earthly life to a race. I don't know about you. But it's hard for me to believe that he's sure he'll go to heaven. After all, he writes that he pummels his body (does penance?) because he fears he might be disqualified. If this life is a race where heaven is the prize at the finish line, then to me, disqualification implies damnation.

Catholic beliefs aside, I want people to be in friendship with God when they pass away. I don't want anyone or anything to help anyone die impenitently when we know that in hell, the slightest pain is immeasurably more severe than any pain anyone could feel on earth. Only God knows for sure who'll go to heaven. So I don't want to play God by deliberately killing someone. Heaven forbid that my God-playing would help anyone die impenitently.