Organ Donors Beware

Great article on patients ready for organ donations who weren't dead and survived! See it here and don't miss the long list of related articles at the end.

More on the Morality/Immorality of Organ Donation

Are Organ Transplants Ever Morally Licit?

A commentary on the address of Pope John Paul II to the XVIII International Congress of the Transplantation Society


By Bishop Fabian Wendelin Bruskewitz, Bishop Robert F. Vasa, Walt F. Weaver, Paul A. Byrne, Richard G. Nilges, and Josef Seifert


On August 29, 2000, Pope John Paul II delivered an address to the XVIII International Congress of the Transplantation Society. While we are grateful for his teachings, we believe that certain points need further clarification.

Some members of the medical profession have interpreted the Holy Father’s address as a tacit unconditional approval for organ transplantation. We believe this interpretation of the Pope’s teaching is profoundly wrong. In fact, we read the Pope’s address as a strong condemnation of the inhumane procedures and violations of natural moral law that presently occur with the transplantation of certain organs. We further argue that all men of good will must properly understand and explicitly follow the applicable theological and moral laws.

These laws are:

• No unpaired vital organ can morally be removed from a living human person;


• There should be no commercial traffic in human organs;


• People—especially the young—must fully comprehend that when they agree to be organ donors, they give transplant surgeons a license to terminate their lives.

Some members of the medical profession have heralded the Pope’s speech as an affirmation of their procedures, when in truth the Holy Father set forth stricter guidelines. These stricter guidelines are currently being violated, misinterpreted, or ignored.